Top databases in 2017

Will this article simply your database decision? Sadly, no — it’s entirely up to you. However, if you want to know which databases are gaining momentum this year, you should know that the answer lies in our annual JAXenter survey.

Survey respondents have decided: PostgreSQL is the winner. 25,3 percent found it “very interesting” and 37,7 percent found it “interesting”. In total, PostgreSQL managed to get 63 percent of the respondents excited about the prospect of using it this year.

The runner-up is Elasticsearch with a total of 59 percent. It seems that the student has become the master; although Elasticsearch is based on Lucene, the latter didn’t manage to convince as many respondents to give it a try in 2017. The combination Lucene/Solr only grabbed the attention of 43,8 percent of the respondents — it’s definitely a high score but not necessarily compared to Elasticsearch’s result.

A similar shift can be seen in the case of data processing Apache Spark and Hadoop. Survey respondents’ interest in Hadoop (34,8 percent) stands no chance against people’s interest in Apache Spark (53,3 percent).

It appears that we have a lot of “drama” in this part of the evaluation. In addition to a couple of cases of “student surpasses master”, we also have a small “fight” between a few NoSQL databases: MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Neo4J. In-memory data grid Hazelcast has managed to outshine both CouchDB and the classic: Oracle. Microsoft SQL Server seems to be the outcast this year.

JAXenter technology trends survey results

One thing is clear: data storage and processing are once again in the public eye. Today, the endless possibilities one has with data storage and processing are becoming not only necessary but also “fashionable” (a.k.a. in great demand). Case in point: some of the greatest companies are betting on databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL. Let’s see who’s on team MySQL and who’s on team PostgreSQL.

SEE ALSO: 4 best open source databases you should consider using for your next project

Team MySQL

We used StackShare, a software discovery platform that allows developers to find and use software tools to look at the software stacks of some of the world’s most popular companies. You can have a look for yourself if you want to see what tools and services your favorite startup is using.

GitHub (see stack here)

Airbnb (see stack here). They also give Hadoop some love.

Yelp (see stack here). They also give Hadoop some love.

Coursera (see stack here). They also give Cassandra some love.

Ask.fm (see stack here)

9GAG (see stack here). They also give Hadoop and Memcached some love.

Trivago (see stack here).They also give Hadoop and Memcached some love.

Freelancer.com (see stack here)

Team PostgreSQL

Reddit (see stack here).They also give Cassandra and Memcached some love.

Spotify (see stack here).They also give Cassandra and Hadoop some love.

Zalando (see stack here).They also give Cassandra and Hadoop some love.

DuckDuckGo (see stack here)

Travis CI (see stack here)

Which team are you on? Tell us in the comments section.

2017 vs 2016: What changed?

Back to our survey for a second. Although there aren’t any massive changes between the databases readers prefer this year vs. the ones they preferred in 2016,  it’s worth mentioning that Redis has gathered more points this year than it did in 2016 (34 percent last year and 43.2 percent in 2017) while MongoDB experienced the opposite change: it lost some points in the meantime (60 percent in 2016 and 49.8 percent this year).

JAXenter annual survey: 2017 v 2016

The million-dollar question is: What’s going to happen next year in the land of databases? Thoughts?