Top all-time · #1942
XTDB
Company blog · xtdb.com/blogprogrammingdata
XTDB is the company blog at xtdb.com, writing about programming and data. Since 2021, 39 different Hacker News readers have linked it 56 times, most often “XTDB: The open database with temporal graph query”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 0 of 32 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN commenters mostly name XTDB as an open-source bitemporal, Datomic-like database with SQL and Datalog, often as an alternative. Linked pages cover bitemporal modelling, SQL nesting and XTDB v2.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 32 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- XTDB: The open database with temporal graph query16 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2021-11-30
- /3 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-03-10
- Blockchain Without the Crypto3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-11-12
- /3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-04-27
- Crux Is Evolving into XTDB2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-09-08
- XTDB 2.x Early Access2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-27
- Trucks, tubes and truth – event-driven systems2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-22
- XTDB – an open-source Datomic alternative2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-27
- Launching XTDB v2 – time-travel SQL database2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-06-12
- The Case for a Bitemporal Database2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-08-08
What Hacker News says?
> Nice work with TXDB btw It's X.T. (as in 'Cross-Time' / https://xtdb.com ), but thank you! :) > 1: https://aidanhogan.com/docs/ring-graph-wco.pdf Oh nice, I recall skimming this team's precursor paper "Worst-Case Optimal Graph Joins in Almost No Space" (2021) - seems like they've done a lot more work since though, so definitely looking forward to reading it: > The conference version presented the ring in terms of…
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on “Computer scientists invent an efficient new way to count”Submitted Trucks, tubes and truth – event-driven systems as a story · 30 points
HN discussion> I dream of a SQLite-like embeddable database engine based on Datomic’s data model and queryable with Datalog. You can have this today by running XTDB[1] on top of SQLite via JDBC. > Written in something like C, Rust, or Zig. And then compiling your application into native executables with GraalVM Native Image[2]. [1] https://xtdb.com/ [2] https://www.graalvm.org/native-image/
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on “SQLite Internals: Pages and B-trees”Submitted XTDB 2.x Early Access as a story · 14 points
HN discussionWhat about https://xtdb.com/
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on “SQLite Internals: Pages and B-trees”Submitted Trucks, Tubes, and Truth as a story · 12 points
HN discussionHave you heard of XTDB / Bitemporality? The basic idea is to make time 2-dimensional, where each record has both a System Time range and a Valid Time range. Designed as a write-only db with full auditability for compliance purposes. With 2D time you can ask complex questions about what you knew when, with simpler questions automatically extended into a question about the current time. Like: "What is the price?" -> "…
Comment linking /blog/diy-bitemporality-challenge
on “Show HN: Timelinize – Privately organize your own data from everywhere, locally”Submitted XTDB: The open database with temporal graph query as a story · 12 points
HN discussionA lot of these same problems were solved in a similar way with Datomic and xtdb. https://www.datomic.com/ https://xtdb.com/
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on “Databases and why their complexity is now unnecessary”Submitted Blockchain Without the Crypto as a story · 11 points
HN discussionXTDB is a general-purpose bitemporal database with graph query capabilities: https://xtdb.com/
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on “Dolt is Git for Data”Submitted Why it's time to retire CRUD as a story · 9 points
HN discussionDoes somebody have experience with XTDB https://xtdb.com/index.html ? We would like to use it in our Clojure application perhaps with PostgreSQL as the backend (JDBC) to make it easier to implement a history feature. Looking forward, instead of backward, it would be great for databases to have some kind of live-patch/ live-update feature so that one does not need any downtime at all if some rules are obeyed (with an…
Comment linking /index.html
on “Databases in 2021: A Year in Review”Submitted XTDB (Crux) – Database for querying across time with bitemporal SQL and Datalog as a story · 5 points
HN discussionXTDB ( https://xtdb.com ) while is not directly for Postgres is at least not reliant on devs knowing Clojure. It's very close to Datomic in terms of approach. They expose SQL, Java, HTTP APIs.
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on “Postgres Auditing in 150 lines of SQL”Submitted Launching XTDB v2 – time-travel SQL database as a story · 4 points
HN discussionBitemporal Database: https://xtdb.com/ Datomic: https://www.datomic.com/
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on “Postgres Auditing in 150 lines of SQL”Submitted XTDB as a story · 4 points
HN discussionAn EAV table is usually a symptom of a wider set of issues with schema management, and in contrast, most people I've spoken to who have implemented their own EAV tables on top of a regular SQL database have ended up regretting it because the approach is too hard to scale and maintain. In your experience, was the EAV model limited to a subset of the overall schema? I agree a special database shouldn't be necessary at…
Comment linking /blog/but-bitemporality-always-introduces-complexity
on “How to use Postgres for everything”Submitted XTDB – General-purpose bitemporal database for SQL, Datalog and graph queries as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI submit that Event Sourcing (or at least something very close to it) can be easy, once you've removed some technology locks. I've seen it happen with Datomic ( https://vvvvalvalval.github.io/posts/2018-11-12-datomic-even... ), but it can probably happen similarly with other tech, such as XTDB ( https://xtdb.com/ ).
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on “Event Sourcing Is Hard (2019)”Submitted XTDB as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI was asking the same question today after investigating XTDB¹ (a Clojure centric bitemporal DB) and went looking for a batteries included WebAssembly framework like Blazor² 1. https://xtdb.com/ 2. https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/apps/aspnet/web-apps/blaz...
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on “Clojure Async Flow Guide”Submitted Update Reconsidered, delivered? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOne of these Postgres-based implementations of SQL:2011's temporal versioning might get you close enough: - https://github.com/nearform/temporal_tables - https://github.com/xocolatl/periods - https://github.com/scalegenius/pg_bitemporal - https://github.com/arkhipov/temporal_tables I haven't used any of them but I work on https://xtdb.com which is also implementing SQL:2011's temporal features :)
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on “Show HN: I made a CMS that uses Git to store your data”Submitted The missing SQL sub-queries as a story · 2 points
HN discussionDatomic is an event-sourced db, and it makes it hard to introduce retroactive corrections to the data when your program's semantic already rely on using datomic's time travelling abilities: at one point you'll need to to distinguish between event time and recording time as explained in this excellent blog post: https://vvvvalvalval.github.io/posts/2018-11-12-datomic-even... This is why I' rather use XTDB [1], a data…
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on “Datomic Is Now Free”Submitted The Case for a Bitemporal Database as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere's a bitemporal Datomic-like database from JUXT that does exactly that, I believe https://www.xtdb.com
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on “Datomic Is Now Free”Submitted Peace, Love and Data Mesh as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
