Riak
Riak is the distributed NoSQL database originally created by Basho Technologies, a company founded in 2008 by Earl Galleher and Antony Falco.
Profile
Riak is a distributed NoSQL database designed for high availability and fault tolerance, offering key-value and time-series data models.
Riak is the distributed NoSQL database originally created by Basho Technologies, a company founded in 2008 by Earl Galleher and Antony Falco. Basho raised approximately $52.6 million across seven funding rounds, including a $25 million Series G in January 2015 led by Georgetown Partners. The company ceased corporate operations and entered receivership in July 2017, after which its intellectual property was acquired by Bet365.
Riak's website remains active, promoting two products: Riak KV, a key-value store for unstructured data, and Riak TS, optimized for IoT and time series workloads. The database is open-source, with enterprise features and support sold separately. Riak was historically deployed by large-scale web and gaming companies including Comcast, Best Buy, Riot Games, Uber, Tapjoy, and The Weather Company.
The project's current governance and commercial backing are unclear; the website lists no recent blog posts, documentation updates, or community activity after 2016. No financial results, headcount, or funding events for Riak as a standalone entity have been reported since the Basho shutdown. The product's resilience and operational simplicity remain its core differentiators, but the lack of active development or corporate stewardship raises questions about long-term viability for new adopters.
Who buys this
- Enterprises requiring always-on, fault-tolerant data infrastructure for web and mobile applications
- IoT and time-series use cases requiring ingestion of high-velocity sensor or device data
- Organizations running on commodity hardware who need to scale horizontally without operational complexity
Publicly disclosed clients
- Comcast
- Best Buy
- Riot Games
- Uber
- Tapjoy
- The Weather Company
- bet365
Strengths and what to watch
Strengths
- Unmatched resiliency: Riak's architecture, inspired by Amazon Dynamo, provides high availability and data durability even during node failures, with no single point of failure.
- Operational simplicity: cited by customers such as Tapjoy and Uber as requiring minimal dedicated engineering resources to run at scale, with sub-millisecond latencies at over 250,000 operations per second.
- Multi-model support on a common codebase: Riak KV and Riak TS share the same distributed core, allowing teams to use key-value or time-series models without managing separate infrastructure.
Watch for
- Corporate abandonment: Basho Technologies entered receivership in July 2017 and its IP was acquired by Bet365. The Riak website shows no updates since 2016, and there is no evidence of active development, community governance, or commercial support for new users.
- Customer concentration risk: Bet365, which acquired the IP, is the de facto steward. If Bet365 stops maintaining the open-source code or shifts internal infrastructure, the project could effectively become abandonware.
- Competitive obsolescence: Modern alternatives such as Cassandra, ScyllaDB, and FoundationDB offer similar or better performance, active communities, and corporate backing from companies like Apple, DataStax, and ScyllaDB, making Riak a risky choice for greenfield deployments.
Key Information
- Industry
- Databases
- Founded
- 2008
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Riak and what does it do?
Riak is a distributed NoSQL database originally created by Basho Technologies. It offers key-value and time-series data models, designed for high availability and fault tolerance. Riak KV handles unstructured data, while Riak TS is optimized for IoT and time series workloads.
Is Riak still actively developed and supported?
Riak's original creator, Basho Technologies, shut down in July 2017 and its IP was acquired by Bet365. The Riak website shows no updates since 2016, and there is no evidence of active development, community governance, or commercial support for new users.
What are the main strengths of Riak?
Riak's architecture, inspired by Amazon Dynamo, provides unmatched resiliency with no single point of failure. It offers operational simplicity, requiring minimal engineering resources to run at scale, and supports sub-millisecond latencies at over 250,000 operations per second.
Which companies have used Riak?
Notable companies that have deployed Riak include Comcast, Best Buy, Riot Games, Uber, Tapjoy, The Weather Company, and Bet365. These clients used Riak for large-scale web and gaming applications requiring always-on, fault-tolerant data infrastructure.
What are the risks of using Riak for new projects?
Riak faces risks from corporate abandonment, as Basho Technologies shut down and Bet365 now owns the IP. There is no active development or community support, and modern alternatives like Cassandra or ScyllaDB offer better performance and corporate backing, making Riak risky for new deployments.
How does Riak compare to other NoSQL databases like Cassandra?
Riak offers similar high availability and fault tolerance to Cassandra, but lacks active development and corporate support. Modern alternatives like Cassandra, ScyllaDB, and FoundationDB have active communities and backing from companies like Apple and DataStax, making them more viable for greenfield projects.
Sources
- riak.com — Product descriptions for Riak KV and Riak TS, customer testimonials, and website content showing no updates after 2016.
- startupintros.com — Basho Technologies funding history ($52.6M raised), founding date, headcount peak, and closure in July 2017 with IP acquired by Bet365.
- www.dbta.com — Details of the $25M Series G round in January 2015 led by Georgetown Partners.
- riak.com — Riak KV 2.2 release highlights, indicating the last major product update.