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Age-related discrimination assumes older programmers are less capable or unwilling to learn. Kate Gregory stresses that inclusive, age-friendly workplaces benefit all employees. She advises staying open to new experiences, learning, and building connections to maintain a fulfilling career and well-being as we age.

Kate Gregory gave a talk about continuing to program as people age at NDC Tech Town.

Trouble seeing, pain, and stiffness are some of the things that can make it harder to program as you age. But they aren’t inevitable, and some solutions can help, as Gregory explained in the InfoQ article What Developers Can Do to Continue to Program as They Age. She gave examples of solutions, like changing fonts, using glasses, and rearranging the office layout.

Gregory did a survey to explore ageing for programmers as part of preparing her talk, and hundreds of developers, of all ages, responded.

Gregory mentioned that older people sometimes face age discrimination. She gave an example where people assume an older person “wouldn’t want to learn that”, or “doesn’t know how to use these new cool things”, or say that someone won’t be a culture fit. Without checking, they exclude the person based on assumptions, she said.

When people meet an older programmer they sometimes think (or even say!) things like, “I guess you weren’t good enough to get promoted to management yet”, Gregory said. The good news is it doesn’t happen everywhere, so if this happens to you, you should find an environment where you’re valued, she argued:

Some places have learned that offering a welcoming workplace gets them some amazing talent.

Most people who replied to her survey said they did occasionally assume older people couldn’t do something or wouldn’t want to, despite trying to remember we all age differently, as Gregory explained:

It’s actually in your own interests to educate yourself about the positive realities of aging, because studies show that people with negative attitudes towards old age and old people are more likely to be hospitalized or have a heart attack or stroke.

Improving the working conditions for programmers is not just about age, Gregory said. When employers stop assuming that everyone is the same, and build a more inclusive environment, that helps everyone, she mentioned. It could be having adjustable lighting, or flexible work hours, or not having a rigid dress code — all of these can make a big difference to some people as they age, or to younger people who have physical needs that are not the same as everyone else’s, she added.

Most of us don’t actually struggle with being able to keep up with new stuff as we are getting older. After several decades you know how to learn, you’ve seen ten different source control systems, or job tracking systems, or whatever, and you can pick up another one easily enough, Gregory said.

Gregory advised to make friends, and don’t stop making new friends all of your life. Try new things too – as life goes on there will be losses, and the only cure for loss is gain, so you have to give new hobbies, new foods, and new entertainment a chance. Some of them will work out wonderfully, she said.

No matter how young you are, it’s never too soon to start working towards the kind of old age you want. And the good news is, it’s also never too late, Gregory concluded.

InfoQ interviewed Kate Gregory about continuing to program as people age.

InfoQ: What’s your suggestion for keeping up with new stuff when we’re getting older?

Kate Gregory: It’s mostly a matter of wanting to keep up. Sometimes we’re just fed up, or unimpressed by the benefits that everyone says the new system will bring, and don’t feel like learning it for that reason. Or we’ve tied our identity to a particular programming language or operating system, and feel like switching to a new one would mean saying we were wrong.

If we can set that aside and focus on the purpose of our work more than the tools we use, picking up a new tool is not beyond any of us.

InfoQ: What’s your advice for a long and happy old age?

Gregory: Embrace exercising, both in the form of active hobbies and active commutes and such, but also in deliberate “twenty minutes of stretching” kind of exercise.

Save money starting young, so that you will be relaxed and comfortable when you reach retirement age. Build up other resources too — surround yourself with nice people, for example, and learn skills like how to talk to people when the stakes are very high, such as during a family medical emergency, so that you get the information and help you need.

Eat well, sleep well, and care for your body. It’s not your enemy, it’s you. Plan for your retirement and work towards that plan now — if you want to paint or sail or golf a lot, learn how to do it now so you can evaluate it and get at least some of that enjoyment without waiting decades.

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Commonwealth Equity Services LLC reduced its position in MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB – Free Report) by 1.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 11,515 shares of the company’s stock after selling 138 shares during the quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC’s holdings in MongoDB were worth $2,681,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in MongoDB during the 4th quarter valued at about $90,478,000. Amundi increased its holdings in MongoDB by 86.2% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 693,740 shares of the company’s stock valued at $172,519,000 after buying an additional 321,186 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in MongoDB by 11,057.0% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 296,889 shares of the company’s stock worth $69,119,000 after buying an additional 294,228 shares in the last quarter. Avala Global LP purchased a new stake in MongoDB during the third quarter worth $47,960,000. Finally, Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan Trust Fund bought a new stake in MongoDB during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,636,000. 89.29% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

MDB has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Robert W. Baird decreased their price objective on MongoDB from $390.00 to $300.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 6th. DA Davidson raised their price target on shares of MongoDB from $340.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. Piper Sandler reduced their price objective on shares of MongoDB from $425.00 to $280.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 6th. Oppenheimer cut their price target on shares of MongoDB from $400.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, March 6th. Finally, Mizuho increased their price objective on MongoDB from $275.00 to $320.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $320.70.

Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on MongoDB

Insider Buying and Selling

In other MongoDB news, CAO Thomas Bull sold 169 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $234.09, for a total value of $39,561.21. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 14,899 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,487,706.91. This trade represents a 1.12 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Dwight A. Merriman sold 3,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.63, for a total transaction of $811,890.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 1,109,006 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $300,130,293.78. The trade was a 0.27 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 43,139 shares of company stock worth $11,328,869 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 3.60% of the company’s stock.

MongoDB Trading Down 2.5 %

Shares of MDB stock opened at $193.66 on Thursday. MongoDB, Inc. has a 12-month low of $173.13 and a 12-month high of $387.19. The business’s 50 day moving average is $248.25 and its two-hundred day moving average is $267.64. The company has a market capitalization of $14.42 billion, a P/E ratio of -70.68 and a beta of 1.30.

MongoDB (NASDAQ:MDB – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, March 5th. The company reported $0.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.64 by ($0.45). The business had revenue of $548.40 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $519.65 million. MongoDB had a negative net margin of 10.46% and a negative return on equity of 12.22%. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.86 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that MongoDB, Inc. will post -1.78 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About MongoDB

(Free Report)

MongoDB, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides general purpose database platform worldwide. The company provides MongoDB Atlas, a hosted multi-cloud database-as-a-service solution; MongoDB Enterprise Advanced, a commercial database server for enterprise customers to run in the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment; and Community Server, a free-to-download version of its database, which includes the functionality that developers need to get started with MongoDB.

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Nvidia presented a range of new technologies at its GTC 2025 event, focusing on advancements in GPUs, AI infrastructure, robotics, and quantum computing. The company introduced the GeForce RTX 5090, a graphics card built on the Blackwell architecture, featuring improvements in energy efficiency, size reduction, and AI-assisted rendering capabilities. Nvidia highlighted the increasing role of AI in real-time, path-traced rendering and GPU performance optimization.

In the data center sector, Nvidia announced the Blackwell Ultra GB300 family of GPUs, designed to enhance AI inference efficiency with 1.5 times the memory capacity of previous models. The company also introduced MVLink, a high-speed interconnect technology that enables faster GPU communication, and Nvidia Dynamo, an AI data center operating system aimed at improving management and efficiency. The DGX Station, a computing platform for AI workloads, was also unveiled to support enterprise AI development.

Nvidia’s automotive division revealed a partnership with General Motors to develop AI-powered self-driving vehicles. The company stated that all software components involved in the project have undergone rigorous safety assessments. Additionally, Nvidia introduced Halos, an AI-powered safety system for autonomous vehicles, integrating hardware, software, and AI-based decision-making.

In robotics, Nvidia introduced the Isaac GR00T N1, an open-source humanoid reasoning model developed in collaboration with Google DeepMind and Disney Research. The Newton physics engine, also open-source, was announced to enhance robotics training by simulating real-world physics for AI-driven robots. Nvidia also expanded its Omniverse platform for physical AI applications with the launch of Cosmos, a generative model aimed at improving AI-driven world simulation and interaction.

The company announced new AI models under the Llama Nemotron family, designed for reasoning-based AI agents. These models are optimized for enterprises looking to deploy AI agents that can work autonomously or collaboratively. Nvidia stated that members of the Nvidia Developer Program could access Llama Nemotron for development, testing, and research.

Nvidia revealed its latest advancements in quantum computing, including the launch of the Nvidia Accelerated Quantum Research Center in Boston. The company is collaborating with Harvard and MIT on quantum computing initiatives. During the conference, Nvidia hosted Quantum Day, where CEO Jensen Huang discussed the evolving role of quantum computing and acknowledged previous underestimations of its development timeline. 

The company introduced a roadmap for future GPUs, including the Vera Rubin GPU, set for release in 2026, followed by Rubin Ultra NVL576 in 2027, which is projected to deliver 15 exaflops of computing power. Nvidia also announced the Feynman GPU, scheduled for 2028, designed to advance AI workloads with enhanced memory and performance capabilities.

Following the conference, online discussions reflected various perspectives on Nvidia’s announcements. Many users expressed interest in the concept of physical AI and its potential applications. 

AI expert Armughan Ahmad shared:

AI is shifting from simple chat assistants to autonomous agents that execute work on our behalf.

While AI strategist Vivi Linsi commented:

With the arrival of agentic and physical AI, AI has developed from talking to Doing – are you ready?

Nvidia’s announcements at GTC 2025 highlight the company’s continued investment in AI, data centers, robotics, and quantum computing, positioning itself at the forefront of next-generation computing infrastructure.

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Sei Investments Co. lessened its holdings in shares of MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB – Free Report) by 56.9% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 108,209 shares of the company’s stock after selling 142,830 shares during the quarter. Sei Investments Co. owned approximately 0.15% of MongoDB worth $25,193,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in MDB. Intech Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in MongoDB by 10.7% in the 3rd quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 5,205 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,407,000 after acquiring an additional 502 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of MongoDB by 2.8% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 278,419 shares of the company’s stock worth $75,271,000 after purchasing an additional 7,575 shares during the period. Cerity Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of MongoDB by 8.3% during the 3rd quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 9,094 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,459,000 after purchasing an additional 695 shares during the last quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its stake in MongoDB by 12.3% during the 3rd quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. now owns 10,323 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,791,000 after purchasing an additional 1,132 shares during the period. Finally, Independent Advisor Alliance grew its holdings in MongoDB by 5.3% in the 3rd quarter. Independent Advisor Alliance now owns 1,516 shares of the company’s stock valued at $410,000 after buying an additional 76 shares during the last quarter. 89.29% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

MongoDB Stock Performance

Shares of MDB stock opened at $193.66 on Thursday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $248.25 and its 200-day moving average is $267.64. MongoDB, Inc. has a 52 week low of $173.13 and a 52 week high of $387.19. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.42 billion, a PE ratio of -70.68 and a beta of 1.30.

MongoDB (NASDAQ:MDB – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, March 5th. The company reported $0.19 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.64 by ($0.45). MongoDB had a negative net margin of 10.46% and a negative return on equity of 12.22%. The company had revenue of $548.40 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $519.65 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.86 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that MongoDB, Inc. will post -1.78 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Cedric Pech sold 287 shares of MongoDB stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $234.09, for a total value of $67,183.83. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 24,390 shares in the company, valued at $5,709,455.10. This trade represents a 1.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CAO Thomas Bull sold 169 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $234.09, for a total transaction of $39,561.21. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 14,899 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,487,706.91. The trade was a 1.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 43,139 shares of company stock worth $11,328,869 in the last quarter. Insiders own 3.60% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on MDB shares. Truist Financial dropped their target price on shares of MongoDB from $400.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 6th. UBS Group set a $350.00 price objective on shares of MongoDB in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Guggenheim raised MongoDB from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $300.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Wells Fargo & Company cut MongoDB from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their price target for the company from $365.00 to $225.00 in a report on Thursday, March 6th. Finally, Tigress Financial lifted their price objective on MongoDB from $400.00 to $430.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $320.70.

Read Our Latest Analysis on MDB

MongoDB Company Profile

(Free Report)

MongoDB, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides general purpose database platform worldwide. The company provides MongoDB Atlas, a hosted multi-cloud database-as-a-service solution; MongoDB Enterprise Advanced, a commercial database server for enterprise customers to run in the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment; and Community Server, a free-to-download version of its database, which includes the functionality that developers need to get started with MongoDB.

Featured Stories

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding MDB? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB – Free Report).

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest and most accurate reporting. This story was reviewed by MarketBeat’s editorial team prior to publication. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.

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Quantbot Technologies LP acquired a new stake in MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB – Free Report) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 3,016 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $702,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of MDB. Hilltop National Bank raised its stake in MongoDB by 47.2% during the 4th quarter. Hilltop National Bank now owns 131 shares of the company’s stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares during the last quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group acquired a new position in shares of MongoDB during the third quarter valued at about $36,000. Continuum Advisory LLC lifted its stake in shares of MongoDB by 621.1% in the third quarter. Continuum Advisory LLC now owns 137 shares of the company’s stock valued at $40,000 after buying an additional 118 shares during the period. NCP Inc. acquired a new stake in MongoDB during the fourth quarter worth about $35,000. Finally, Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB bought a new position in MongoDB during the third quarter valued at about $44,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.29% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

MDB has been the topic of a number of research reports. Guggenheim upgraded MongoDB from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $300.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 6th. DA Davidson boosted their price target on shares of MongoDB from $340.00 to $405.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $380.00 price objective on shares of MongoDB in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. KeyCorp cut shares of MongoDB from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and set a $350.00 price target on shares of MongoDB in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-three have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, MongoDB has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $320.70.

View Our Latest Report on MDB

Insider Activity at MongoDB

In other news, CEO Dev Ittycheria sold 2,581 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $234.09, for a total value of $604,186.29. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 217,294 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $50,866,352.46. This represents a 1.17 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Thomas Bull sold 169 shares of MongoDB stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $234.09, for a total transaction of $39,561.21. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 14,899 shares in the company, valued at $3,487,706.91. The trade was a 1.12 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 43,139 shares of company stock worth $11,328,869 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 3.60% of the company’s stock.

MongoDB Stock Down 2.5 %

MDB stock opened at $193.66 on Thursday. MongoDB, Inc. has a twelve month low of $173.13 and a twelve month high of $387.19. The company has a market cap of $14.42 billion, a P/E ratio of -70.68 and a beta of 1.30. The business has a fifty day moving average of $248.25 and a 200-day moving average of $267.64.

MongoDB (NASDAQ:MDB – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, March 5th. The company reported $0.19 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.64 by ($0.45). The firm had revenue of $548.40 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $519.65 million. MongoDB had a negative return on equity of 12.22% and a negative net margin of 10.46%. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.86 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that MongoDB, Inc. will post -1.78 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

MongoDB Company Profile

(Free Report)

MongoDB, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides general purpose database platform worldwide. The company provides MongoDB Atlas, a hosted multi-cloud database-as-a-service solution; MongoDB Enterprise Advanced, a commercial database server for enterprise customers to run in the cloud, on-premises, or in a hybrid environment; and Community Server, a free-to-download version of its database, which includes the functionality that developers need to get started with MongoDB.

Featured Stories

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest and most accurate reporting. This story was reviewed by MarketBeat’s editorial team prior to publication. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.

Before you consider MongoDB, you’ll want to hear this.

MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street’s top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on… and MongoDB wasn’t on the list.

While MongoDB currently has a Moderate Buy rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys.

View The Five Stocks Here

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GitHub has launched an AI-powered secret scanning feature within Copilot, integrated into GitHub Secret Protection, that leverages context analysis to improve the detection of leaked passwords in code significantly. This new approach addresses the shortcomings of traditional regular expression-based methods, which often miss varied password structures and generate numerous false positives.

According to a GitHub blog post detailing the development, the system now analyzes the usage and location of potential secrets to reduce irrelevant alerts and provide more accurate notifications critical to repository security. Sorin Moga, a senior software engineer at Sensis, commented on LinkedIn that this marks a new era in platform security, where AI not only assists in development, but also safeguards code integrity.

A key challenge identified during the private preview of GitHub’s AI-powered secret scanning was its struggle with unconventional file types and structures, highlighting the limitations of relying solely on the large language model’s (LLM) initial training data. GitHub’s initial approach involved “few-shot prompting” with GPT-3.5-Turbo, where the model was provided with examples to guide detection.

To address these early challenges, GitHub significantly enhanced its offline evaluation framework by incorporating feedback from private preview participants to diversify test cases and leveraging the GitHub Code Security team’s evaluation processes to build a more robust data collection pipeline. They even used GPT-4 to generate new test cases based on learnings from existing secret scanning alerts in open-source repositories. This improved evaluation allowed for better measurement of precision (reducing false positives) and recall (reducing false negatives).

GitHub experimented with various techniques to improve detection quality, including trying different LLM models (like GPT-4 as a confirming scanner), repeated prompting (“voting”), and diverse prompting strategies. Ultimately, they collaborated with Microsoft, adopting their MetaReflection technique, a form of offline reinforcement learning that blends Chain of Thought (CoT) and few-shot prompting to enhance precision.

As stated in the GitHub blog post:

We ultimately ended up using a combination of all these techniques and moved Copilot secret scanning into public preview, opening it widely to all GitHub Secret Protection customers.

To further validate these improvements and gain confidence for general availability, GitHub implemented a “mirror testing” framework. This involved testing prompt and filtering changes on a subset of repositories from the public preview. By rescanning these repositories with the latest improvements, GitHub could assess the impact on real alert volumes and false positive resolutions without affecting users.

This testing revealed a significant drop in both detections and false positives, with minimal impact on finding actual passwords, including a 94% reduction in false positives in some cases. The blog post concludes that:

This before-and-after comparison indicated that all the different changes we made during private and public preview led to increased precision without sacrificing recall, and that we were ready to provide a reliable and efficient detection mechanism to all GitHub Secret Protection customers.

The lessons learned during this development include prioritizing accuracy, using diverse test cases based on user feedback, managing resources effectively, and fostering collaboration. These learnings are also being applied to Copilot Autofix. Since the general availability launch, Copilot secret scanning has been part of security configurations, allowing users to manage which repositories are scanned.

Article originally posted on InfoQ. Visit InfoQ

The team behind the distributed serverless database Fauna has recently announced plans to shut down the service by the end of May. While the managed database will be terminated soon and all customers will have to migrate to other platforms, Fauna is committing to releasing an open source version of the core database technology alongside the existing drivers and CLI tooling.

Started in 2011 as FaunaDB by the team that scaled Twitter by building its in-house databases and systems, Fauna tried for many years to combine the power of a relational database with the flexibility of JSON documents. Fauna was designed to scale horizontally within a data center to maximize throughput while easily spanning globally distributed sites, ensuring reliability and local performance. With the vision of enabling “applications without database limits” and claiming use by more than 80,000 development teams, the service has now reached the end of the road.

According to the Fauna Service End of Life FAQ, the Fauna service will be turned off on May 30th, and all Fauna accounts will be deleted. The team writes:

Driving broad based adoption of a new operational database that runs as a service globally is very capital intensive. In the current market environment, our board and investors have determined that it is not possible to raise the capital needed to achieve that goal independently.

Yan Cui, AWS Serverless Hero and serverless expert, writes:

Sad to see Fauna go. They were one of the first truly serverless databases on the market.

Ankur Raina, senior staff sales engineer at Cockroach Labs, summarizes:

The DB market is brutal (…) Getting large customers on Serverless databases is hard. (…) Fauna was trying to build the document model of MongoDB, consistency & geo distribution of CockroachDB but without any ability to run it beyond two cloud providers.

The sunsetting of a once-popular database has sparked many reactions within the community. In a popular Hacker News thread, Pier Bover, founder of Waveki, writes:

A decade ago it seemed that edge computing, serverless, and distributed data was the future. Fauna made a lot of sense in that vision. But in these years since, experimenting with edge stuff, I’ve learned that most data doesn’t really need to be distributed. You don’t need such a sophisticated solution to cache a subset of data for reads in a CDN or some KV. What I’m saying is that, probably, Cloudflare Workers KV and similar services killed Fauna.

User strobe adds:

I found Fauna very interesting from a technical perspective many years ago, but even then, the idea of a fully proprietary cloud database with no reasonable migration options seemed pretty crazy at the time. (…) Hope that something useful will be open sourced as a result.

Peter Zaitsev, open source advocate, questions instead:

While there is no alternative history, I wonder what would have happened if Fauna had chosen to start as Open Source, become 100x more widely adopted but monetize a smaller portion of their customers due to “competing” Open Source alternatives.

The market of distributed databases that once competed with Fauna includes Google Spanner, PlanetScale, CockroachDB, and TiDB, among others. A migration guide is now available, offering the option to create snapshot exports, with the exported data stored as JSON files in an AWS S3 bucket. For smaller collections, data can also be exported using FQL queries.