The memory and storage engine for AI agents — from the edge to the cloud.

Durable, queryable, access-guarded memory for AI agents that runs where the agent runs — embedded on device, offline-capable, and syncing to a distributed server when connected. Semantic, relational, episodic, and time-series memory in one engine, one process, with no network hops between them.

Quickstart · Docs · Benchmarks · NodeDB-Lite · CLI

AI agents need memory: what they were told, how facts relate, what happened when, and what matters right now. The usual answer stitches a cloud vector store to a graph database to a document store — or dumps everything into a markdown file and hopes. NodeDB puts all of it in one engine that runs where the agent runs: the same engine embeds on a laptop, phone, or browser (NodeDB-Lite) and scales to a distributed cluster (NodeDB Origin), with CRDT sync between them.

It already powers ma8e, an in-development memory-and-knowledge layer for coding agents built entirely on embedded NodeDB — deterministic capture, hybrid retrieval, and access guards in one process with no network hop.

Why NodeDB

• Memory that runs where the agent runs. The same engines embed on device and in the browser (NodeDB-Lite, WASM), work offline, and sync conflict-free to the server (CRDT). A cloud vector store can't embed next to your agent; a markdown file isn't queryable or access-guarded.
• All of an agent's memory in one query. Vector search, graph traversal, full-text ranking, document storage, timeseries, and key-value share one storage core, one identity space, and one planner — so a query flows from semantic search into graph traversal filtered by full-text, in one process with no network hops. Multi-model is how NodeDB does this; the point is the capability, not the label.
• PostgreSQL wire protocol. Connect with psql or any PostgreSQL client library. Standard SQL with engine-specific extensions where SQL can't express the operation.
• One engine instead of a polyglot stack. When you outgrow the edge, the same engine folds a server-side sprawl of separate systems into a single deployment — fewer services to run, no cross-system sync pipelines, no schema drift.
• Serious about performance. Thread-per-Core data plane with io_uring, SIMD-accelerated distance functions, zero-copy MessagePack transport, per-column compression (ALP, FastLanes, FSST, Gorilla). See benchmarks below.

Performance

Timeseries ingest + query benchmark — 10M rows, high-cardinality DNS telemetry (50K+ unique domain names). Single node, NVMe storage.

Ingest

Engine	Rate	Time	Memory	Disk
NodeDB	93,450/s	107s	120 MB	2,217 MB
TimescaleDB	56,615/s	177s	963 MB	2,802 MB
ClickHouse	53,905/s	186s	1,035 MB	1,647 MB
InfluxDB	22,715/s	88s (2M cap)	1,656 MB	982 MB

Queries (ms, best of 3)

Query	NodeDB	ClickHouse	TimescaleDB	InfluxDB (2M)
COUNT(*)	<1	1	423	13,110
WHERE qtype=A COUNT	47	6	347	5,297
WHERE rcode=SERVFAIL	41	6	334	1,048
GROUP BY qtype	56	15	597	12,426
GROUP BY rcode	52	16	604	13,183
GROUP BY cached+AVG	120	33	677	13,652
GROUP BY client_ip (10K)	141	157	660	14,301
GROUP BY qname (50K+)	2,665	288	3,644	16,720
time_bucket 1h	101	30	603	--
time_bucket 5m+qtype	138	99	711	--

NodeDB is not a specialized timeseries database, yet it ingests 1.65x faster than TimescaleDB and 1.73x faster than ClickHouse with 8x less memory. Query latency is competitive with ClickHouse on low-cardinality aggregations and within 3-5x on high-cardinality GROUP BY. This is the tradeoff of a general-purpose engine: you get one system instead of five, with performance that stays in the same ballpark as specialized tools.

Engines

Engine	What it replaces	Key capability
Vector	pgvector, Pinecone, Weaviate	HNSW with SQ8/PQ quantization, adaptive bitmap pre-filtering
Graph	Neo4j, Amazon Neptune	CSR adjacency, 13 algorithms, Cypher-subset MATCH, GraphRAG
Document	MongoDB, CouchDB	Schemaless (MessagePack + CRDT) or Strict (Binary Tuples, O(1) field access). Typeguards for gradual schema enforcement
Columnar	ClickHouse, DuckDB	Per-column codecs (ALP, FastLanes, FSST), predicate pushdown, HTAP bridge
Timeseries	TimescaleDB, InfluxDB	ILP ingest, continuous aggregation, PromQL, approximate aggregation
Spatial	PostGIS	R*-tree, geohash, H3, OGC predicates, hybrid spatial-vector
Key-Value	Redis, DynamoDB	O(1) lookups, TTL, sorted indexes, rate limiting, SQL-queryable
Full-Text Search	Elasticsearch	BMW BM25, 27-language support, CJK bigrams, fuzzy, hybrid vector fusion
Array (NDArray)	TileDB, Zarr	Multi-dimensional tiles, Z-order indexing, bitemporal support, tile-level retention

Install

# Docker
docker run -d \
  -p 6432:6432 -p 6433:6433 -p 6480:6480 \
  -v nodedb-data:/var/lib/nodedb \
  farhansyah/nodedb:latest

# Cargo
cargo install nodedb

Requires Linux kernel >= 5.1 (io_uring). Connect:

ndb                              # native CLI (connects to localhost:6433)
psql -h localhost -p 6432        # or any PostgreSQL client

CREATE COLLECTION users;

-- Standard SQL
INSERT INTO users (name, email, age) VALUES ('Alice', 'alice@example.com', 30);

-- Object literal syntax (same result)
INSERT INTO users { name: 'Bob', email: 'bob@example.com', age: 25 };

-- Batch insert
INSERT INTO users [
    { name: 'Charlie', email: 'charlie@example.com', age: 35 },
    { name: 'Dana', email: 'dana@example.com', age: 28 }
];

SELECT * FROM users WHERE age > 25;

New here? Start with the Quickstart on the official documentation site: nodedb.dev/docs.

Deployment Modes

Mode	Use case
Origin (server)	Full distributed database. Multi-Raft, io_uring, pgwire. Horizontal scaling.
Origin (local)	Same binary, single-node. No cluster overhead.
NodeDB-Lite	Embedded library for phones, browsers, desktops. CRDT sync to Origin.

NodeDB-Lite

All eight engines as an embedded library. Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, iOS, and browser (WASM, experimental).

• Lite only -- local-first apps that don't need a server. Vector search, graph, FTS, documents, arrays, all in-process with sub-ms reads.
• Lite + Origin -- offline-first with CRDT sync. Writes happen locally, deltas merge to Origin when online. Multiple devices converge regardless of order.
• Same API -- the NodeDb trait is identical across Lite and Origin. Switch between embedded and server without changing application code.

See NodeDB-Lite for platform details and sync configuration.

Key Features

Write-time validation -- Typeguards enforce types, required fields, CHECK constraints, and DEFAULT/VALUE expressions on schemaless collections. Graduate to strict schema with CONVERT COLLECTION x TO document_strict.

Bitemporal queries -- System time (audit trail) and valid time (temporal semantics) across all engines. Query data as it existed in the past, or as it was valid on a past date. GDPR-compliant tile purge on array engine.

Multi-dimensional arrays -- Scientific computing with Z-order indexed tiles, tile-level compression, and bitemporal support. Combine with vector/graph/text in fused queries via cross-engine identity.

Real-time -- CDC change streams with consumer groups (~1-5ms latency). Streaming materialized views. Durable topics. Cron scheduler. LISTEN/NOTIFY. All powered by the Event Plane.

Programmability -- Stored procedures with IF/FOR/WHILE/LOOP. User-defined functions. Triggers (async, sync, deferred). SECURITY DEFINER.

Security -- RBAC with GRANT/REVOKE. Row-level security with $auth.* context across all engines. Hash-chained audit log. Multi-tenancy with per-tenant encryption. JWKS, mTLS, API keys.

Six wire protocols -- pgwire (PostgreSQL), HTTP/REST, WebSocket, RESP (Redis), ILP (InfluxDB line protocol), native MessagePack.

Tools

• ndb -- Native CLI with TUI, syntax highlighting, and tab completion. Alternative to psql.
• NodeDB Studio -- GUI client for managing collections, browsing data, and monitoring. (coming soon)
• nodedb-bench -- Performance benchmarks against competing databases.

Documentation

The official documentation site is nodedb.dev/docs — start with the Quickstart.

In-repo references:

• Getting Started -- Build, run, connect
• Architecture -- Three-plane execution model
• Engine Guides -- Deep dives into each engine
• Security -- Auth, RBAC, RLS, audit, multi-tenancy
• Real-Time -- CDC, pub/sub, LIVE SELECT
• NodeDB-Lite -- Embedded edge database
• AI Patterns -- RAG, GraphRAG, agent memory, feature store

Contributing

We welcome bug fixes, engine improvements, new codecs and analyzers, test coverage, and documentation. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a PR — NodeDB's Three-Plane execution model has hard rules that reviewers enforce.

Building from Source

For development or contributing:

git clone https://github.com/NodeDB-Lab/nodedb.git
cd nodedb
cargo build --release
cargo install cargo-nextest --locked  # one-time
cargo nextest run --all-features

Release Status

NodeDB Origin is in public beta; the current release is v0.5.0 (2026-08-04). All eight engines are feature-complete and covered by tests. The query-facing wire protocols (pgwire, HTTP, native MessagePack, RESP) are stable — clients written against 0.1.0 will keep working through 1.0. The CRDT sync protocol and ILP ingest are still moving: 0.5.0 changes the sync frame and requires authentication on ILP connections, so upgrade NodeDB Lite and ingest clients together with the server.

v0.5.0 ships as server binaries and Docker images; the crates.io publication follows separately, so cargo add still resolves 0.4.0 for now. Library users who need the 0.5.0 fixes today can depend on the v0.5.0 tag by git.

v0.5.0 — Beta (today). Build new products on it. The public surface (SQL dialect, query wire protocols, configuration) is stable; expect internal changes (storage layout, on-disk format, replication internals) between minor releases — a 0.4.0 data directory needs a dump/reload to move to 0.5.0. Patch and minor bumps land as needed — 0.2 through 0.5 shipped as the work demanded. The beta period is deliberately for real workloads to surface edge cases we can't manufacture in-house.

v1.0.0 — Production-ready (target: after the beta hardening period). What 1.0 guarantees:

• API & SQL stability — semver from 1.0 onward. No breaking SQL or client-API changes within a major.
• Wire protocol stability — pgwire, HTTP, native MessagePack, RESP, ILP, WebSocket frozen.
• On-disk format stability — no breaking migrations within 1.x. Forward-compatible upgrades only.
• Cluster & Raft stability — rolling upgrades supported within 1.x; no quorum-breaking changes.
• Performance SLAs — published p50/p99 targets per engine, regression-gated in CI.
• Security audit — third-party audit completed and findings remediated before 1.0 ships.
• Storage, backup, and recovery — fully exercised under fault injection, sustained load, and crash-restart cycles.

Pre-1.0 versions may change internals between releases — those changes are critical-path work (storage, backup, security, recovery) that has to be hardened in real production conditions before we put a stability stamp on it. The wire protocol and SQL surface won't break; everything underneath is fair game until 1.0.

Note: This release track applies to NodeDB Origin (the server) only. NodeDB-Lite, ndb CLI, and NodeDB Studio are versioned independently on their own tracks.

Want to test or experiment with NodeDB? Join our Discord — we provide full support for early adopters during the beta.

Contributors

License

NodeDB is source-available under a mixed-license model. The short version: you can use NodeDB for anything — internal apps, your own SaaS or AI-agent platform, commercial products, at any scale. The one thing you may not do is offer NodeDB itself to third parties as a hosted database service (DBaaS).

• Everything except the server — Apache 2.0, no strings. The shared kernel that both Origin and NodeDB-Lite build on: the engines (nodedb-vector, nodedb-vector-gpu, nodedb-graph, nodedb-fts, nodedb-spatial, nodedb-columnar, nodedb-array), the foundations (nodedb-mem, nodedb-wal, nodedb-crdt), and the supporting crates (nodedb-types, nodedb-codec, nodedb-strict, nodedb-sql, nodedb-query, nodedb-physical, nodedb-client). Use them freely in your own projects, SDKs, and tools.
• The server — Business Source License 1.1. Only four crates: nodedb (the server binary), nodedb-bridge, nodedb-raft, nodedb-cluster — the three-plane runtime and distribution layer. Free for any use except operating it as a managed/hosted database service on others' behalf. Converts to Apache 2.0 on 2030-05-01.

Cloud providers and marketplaces may offer one-click or self-deploy NodeDB images freely — that's explicitly permitted; the line is operational, not promotional. Only running the database as a managed service on someone's behalf needs a commercial license.

NodeDB-Lite (the embedded build — WASM/OPFS, mobile, desktop) is entirely Apache 2.0 and pulls in only the Apache crates above. There is no BSL anywhere in a Lite dependency tree — embed it wherever you like.