CockroachDB
Cockroach Labs builds CockroachDB, a distributed SQL database built on Google Spanner's architecture that provides strong consistency, automatic failover, and zero data loss across geographic regions.
Profile
Distributed SQL database for applications that must survive regional outages without data loss or downtime.
Cockroach Labs builds CockroachDB, a distributed SQL database built on Google Spanner's architecture that provides strong consistency, automatic failover, and zero data loss across geographic regions. Founded in 2015 by ex-Google engineers Spencer Kimball, Peter Mattis, and Ben Darnell—who worked on Colossus, the Google File System, and Google Reader respectively—the company raised $278 million in Series F funding at a $5 billion valuation in December 2021, bringing total funding to $633 million. As of mid-2025, Cockroach Labs operates with approximately 700 employees across New York, Austin, London, Toronto, and Bangalore.
The company reported $128.3 million in annual recurring revenue as of end-2023, with recent leadership changes including the appointment of Jason Forget as President and CRO (from Redis, where he grew the company from zero to 9,000 customers) and Sailesh Munagala as CFO in April 2025. CockroachDB's customer base spans major enterprises including Booking.com, DoorDash, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Rivian, and Squarespace, with the company claiming 200% year-over-year growth in new enterprise customer lands and over 100% ARR growth in cloud services. In October 2025, Cockroach Labs announced an OEM partnership with IBM to deliver CockroachDB PostgreSQL across IBM LinuxONE, Linux on Z, and Red Hat OpenShift environments.
The company made a significant strategic shift in August 2024, retiring its free Core offering and consolidating self-hosted products under a single enterprise license—companies earning above $10 million annually pay per CPU, while smaller businesses receive free access. This licensing restructuring follows the company's 15% workforce reduction in October 2023 and reflects ongoing tensions between open-source community norms and commercial sustainability.
Who buys this
- Fintechs and payment platforms handling transactional scale (50M+ users)
- Cloud-native e-commerce and retail operations requiring global consistency
- Media streaming and gaming platforms managing user accounts and inventory
- Financial services managing mission-critical transaction systems
- AI/ML workloads requiring resilient data infrastructure with compliance
Publicly disclosed clients
- Booking.com
- DoorDash
- NVIDIA
- OpenAI
- Rivian
- Squarespace
- Netflix
Strengths and what to watch
Strengths
- PostgreSQL compatibility eliminates retraining overhead and reduces migration friction for enterprises with existing SQL infrastructure
- Proven ability to replace single-region databases (e.g., DoorDash adopted it as their storage engine), demonstrating production-grade resilience
- IBM OEM partnership (October 2025) brings enterprise distribution and mainframe integration, particularly valuable for legacy-modernization use cases
Watch for
- Licensing pivot in August 2024 retired the free Core edition, sparking community backlash; customers like Oxide Computer forked older open-source versions rather than adopt enterprise licensing
- 15% workforce reduction in October 2023 (440 to 380 employees) followed by aggressive hiring, creating internal uncertainty; Glassdoor reviews cite culture decline, mandatory return-to-office, and DEI rollback
- No new equity funding announced since December 2021 Series F; IPO speculation has not materialized, leaving question of long-term capital availability if growth slows
Recent moves
Key Information
- Industry
- NewSQL Databases
- Founded
- 2015
- Employees
- 719
- Country
- United States
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CockroachDB?
CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database built on Google Spanner's architecture, providing strong consistency, automatic failover, and zero data loss across geographic regions. Founded in 2015 by ex-Google engineers, it serves enterprises like Booking.com and DoorDash requiring resilience against regional outages without downtime or data loss.
How does CockroachDB handle regional outages?
CockroachDB automatically detects regional failures and reroutes traffic without manual intervention, maintaining data consistency and availability. It replicates data across geographic regions with automatic failover, ensuring zero data loss and no downtime. This resilience makes it ideal for mission-critical applications serving global users.
Is CockroachDB compatible with PostgreSQL?
Yes. CockroachDB is PostgreSQL-compatible, eliminating retraining overhead and reducing migration friction for enterprises with existing SQL infrastructure. This compatibility allows developers to use familiar SQL tools and migrate workloads with minimal code changes, making adoption easier for organizations with established PostgreSQL deployments.
What companies use CockroachDB?
Major enterprises including Booking.com, DoorDash, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Rivian, Squarespace, and Netflix rely on CockroachDB. DoorDash adopted it as their primary storage engine, demonstrating production-grade resilience. These customers span fintechs, e-commerce, media streaming, and AI workloads requiring mission-critical, globally-consistent data infrastructure.
How much does CockroachDB cost?
CockroachDB uses a CPU-based pricing model under its Enterprise license. Companies earning above $10 million annually pay per CPU. Smaller businesses and nonprofits receive free access. This model replaced the free Core edition in August 2024, shifting toward a sustainable commercial model.
What is CockroachDB's IBM partnership?
In October 2025, Cockroach Labs announced an OEM partnership with IBM to deliver CockroachDB across IBM LinuxONE, Linux on Z, and Red Hat OpenShift. This partnership brings enterprise distribution and mainframe integration, enabling legacy-modernization use cases and expanding CockroachDB's reach into regulated, mainframe-dependent industries.
How CockroachDB compares
Direct head-to-head against 3 competitors. Picked by 7wData.
CockroachDB
- Positioning
- Distributed SQL database for applications that must survive regional outages without data loss or downtime.
- Customer segments
- Fintechs and payment platforms handling transactional scale (50M+ users)
- Strengths
- PostgreSQL compatibility eliminates retraining overhead and reduces migration friction for enterprises with existing SQL infrastructure
- Watch for
- Licensing pivot in August 2024 retired the free Core edition, sparking community backlash; customers like Oxide Computer forked older open-source versions rather than adopt enterprise licensing
- Recent moves
- IBM Enters OEM Partnership with Cockroach Labs to Deliver Cloud-Native Resilience for the AI Era
YugabyteDB
- Positioning
- Open-source distributed PostgreSQL targeting multi-region transactional workloads, deployable on-premises, multi-cloud, or as a managed service.
- Customer segments
- Cloud-native fintechs, e-commerce platforms, and media companies needing multi-region resilience without single-cloud vendor commitment.
- Strengths
- Core database ships under Apache 2.0, no license controversy, giving procurement teams a stable permissive baseline CockroachDB no longer offers.
- Watch for
- No new funding since Series C (September 2021). At $45.3M ARR the commercial scale gap versus larger rivals raises long-term sustainability questions.
- Recent moves
- Vector search capabilities for AI application developers launched July 2025, extending the database toward GenAI and agent workloads.
PingCAP (TiDB)
- Positioning
- MySQL-compatible distributed SQL for HTAP workloads, running transactional and analytical queries on the same cluster without a separate pipeline.
- Customer segments
- High-volume fintechs, payment platforms, and e-commerce operators with concurrent OLTP and analytics needs. Buyers are data architects and infrastructure leads.
- Strengths
- TiFlash columnar replication allows analytics on live transactional data without ETL, a capability absent from CockroachDB's architecture.
- Watch for
- Beijing-based origin. US federal agencies and regulated-industry procurement teams routinely flag China-linked vendors for extended security review cycles.
- Recent moves
- TiDB X, decoupling compute from object storage for dynamic scale across OLTP and analytics, launched October 2025 at SCaiLE Summit.
Amazon Aurora DSQL
- Positioning
- Serverless PostgreSQL-compatible distributed SQL from AWS, with zero infrastructure management for teams building multi-region applications inside the AWS ecosystem.
- Customer segments
- AWS-native SaaS builders and cloud-first enterprises needing multi-region transactions without database administration overhead. Buyer is infrastructure engineer or platform team.
- Strengths
- Per-request serverless billing eliminates provisioned-capacity commitments, reducing cost unpredictability for variable-load workloads across multiple AWS regions.
- Watch for
- GA'd May 2025 with a reduced PostgreSQL dialect (DDL restrictions, no stored procedures). Early adopters cite missing feature coverage versus standard PostgreSQL.
- Recent moves
- General availability launched May 27, 2025, following AWS re:Invent 2024 preview. Positioned directly against CockroachDB for serverless distributed SQL workloads.
Sources
- www.cockroachlabs.com — Company overview, customer list (Booking.com, DoorDash, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Rivian, Squarespace), headquarters and global presence
- techcrunch.com — Series F funding ($278M), $5B valuation, December 2021 timing, investor names
- www.cockroachlabs.com — IBM OEM partnership announcement (October 7, 2025), integration scope, strategic importance
- techcrunch.com — August 2024 licensing change, Enterprise model, CPU-based pricing, $10M revenue threshold
- www.cockroachlabs.com — Jason Forget appointment as President and CRO, customer expansion metrics (139% annual expansion, major bank customers), geographic growth
- www.cockroachlabs.com — Sailesh Munagala CFO appointment (April 2025), ARR growth metrics (80% YoY new ARR, 100%+ cloud ARR growth)
- gotobusinessmag.com — October 2023 layoffs (15% reduction, ~440 to 380 employees), affected departments
- www.glassdoor.com — Employee satisfaction (3.8/5 rating, 69% would recommend), culture concerns, RTO mandate, DEI rollback