Snowflake has strategically acquired Crunchy Data, addressing a notable gap in its Postgres strategy amidst a rapidly evolving cloud data landscape. Previously, Snowflake provided a Postgres connector to facilitate data ingestion into its SQL-based engine. However, the growing importance of enhancing Postgres capabilities has become evident, especially as it remains the most favored database among developers, according to Stack Overflow.
In a parallel move, Snowflake’s competitor Databricks recently acquired Neon for billion, emphasizing its commitment to delivering serverless Postgres solutions. Databricks noted that a significant 80 percent of databases provisioned by Neon were generated automatically by AI agents, highlighting the increasing role of automation in database management.
The announcement of Snowflake’s acquisition coincided with the commencement of its Summit 25 user event in San Francisco, with reports estimating the deal’s value at 0 million. Crunchy Data’s Postgres technology will be rebranded as Snowflake Postgres, which the company describes as “the AI-ready, enterprise-grade and developer-friendly PostgreSQL database to the AI Data Cloud.” This new iteration of Postgres is designed to support the most demanding, mission-critical AI and transactional systems at an enterprise scale, instilling confidence in its capabilities.
Connecting up silos
Snowflake assures that the revamped product will retain the “full power and flexibility of open source Postgres,” while also providing the governance and security expected from a major player like Snowflake. More significantly, the company claims that the rebranded offering will eliminate administrative and operational silos.
Snowflake further emphasized that organizations heavily invested in the Postgres ecosystem will have the ability to migrate and operate existing applications on Snowflake without the need for code rewrites, facilitating the rollout of new applications with greater assurance.
Paul Laurence from Crunchy Data expressed that this acquisition will promote widespread adoption of Postgres and enhance their contributions to the Postgres ecosystem and community. Snowflake highlighted examples such as Blue Yonder and Landing AI, both of which utilize Postgres alongside Snowflake, illustrating how these companies can consolidate their application stacks to achieve greater efficiency and cost savings.
Moreover, Snowflake indicated that this acquisition would complement its innovative solution, Unistore, which unifies transactional and analytical data within a single database. This will provide an enterprise-ready option for transactional applications that require Postgres compatibility, pending the imminent closure of the deal.
