Postgres Archives

Tech Optimizer

August 19, 2026

Electric Joins Databricks to Bring WASM Postgres to AI Agent Sandboxes, Expanding Databricks Postgres from the Lakehouse to the Edge

Databricks has integrated the Electric team to enhance its capabilities by incorporating WASM Postgres into AI agent sandboxes. Electric has developed PGlite, which provides each agent with a lightweight Postgres instance for low-latency access to local context, facilitating real-time data processing. Their real-time sync engine maintains synchronization of agents' distributed states with a central Lakebase, allowing effective collaboration among agents. Both Electric and Lakebase utilize Postgres, with Lakebase offering it at a production scale and PGlite introducing WASM Postgres into the agent's environment. This integration allows for collaborative applications, execution of Postgres within the agent sandbox, and ensures synchronization among agents while centralizing control in Lakebase Postgres.

Tech Optimizer

August 19, 2026

Postgres pioneer credits Oracle with helping his database take over the world

Michael Stonebraker, the creator of PostgreSQL, noted that Oracle's acquisition of MySQL inadvertently boosted PostgreSQL's prominence among major tech companies like Microsoft, AWS, and Google. PostgreSQL, which originated from Stonebraker's earlier Postgres system proposed in 1986, celebrated its 30th anniversary this summer. Its popularity surged over the past five years, becoming the preferred database among developers in 2023, as per a Stack Overflow survey. Microsoft has launched a distributed PostgreSQL database service to compete with other offerings. Stonebraker highlighted the extensive adoption of PostgreSQL's wire format by major companies, contrasting it with MySQL's declining competitiveness since Oracle's acquisition in 2010. He expressed gratitude towards Oracle for prompting users to consider PostgreSQL as an alternative, emphasizing its open-source nature and community-driven control. Stonebraker has founded several database companies and co-founded DBOS three years ago, which has pivoted towards AI agents and partnerships with Databricks and CockroachDB.

Tech Optimizer

August 18, 2026

Oh no, not another one! Databricks buys Electric

Databricks has acquired Electric, the developer of PGLite and the Electric Sync Engine, to enhance its Postgres capabilities for lakehouse and edge environments. PGLite offers lightweight Postgres instances for low-latency access, while the Electric Sync Engine enables real-time synchronization of distributed state to a central Lakebase. Electric was founded in September 2021 and has raised funding from various investors. Its flagship product, PGLite, has seen a rise in weekly downloads from 1 million to 13 million. Electric also offers open-source products including Electric Agents, Electric Streams, and Electric Sync. Databricks previously acquired Neon in May 2022 to support serverless Postgres solutions. The integration of Electric's technology aims to enhance collaboration and scalability for agentic applications.

Tech Optimizer

August 14, 2026

Databricks acquires Electric to bring local Postgres databases to agentic apps

Many enterprise teams are facing challenges in data governance, particularly concerning sandbox-level state, despite effective central warehouse governance. Databricks is addressing this issue proactively. CIOs should ask vendors how state is secured and managed within agents, not just in central databases. Distributing state across agent sandboxes increases security risks and complicates governance, requiring enterprises to extend access control, audit, and compliance frameworks beyond a single database to numerous local instances. Robust data governance strategies are essential for managing data security and compliance.

Tech Optimizer

August 13, 2026

Databricks Acquires Electric to Give AI Agents Their Own Local Postgres

Databricks has acquired Electric, the team behind PGlite, a WebAssembly-compiled version of Postgres designed for embedded applications, and a real-time synchronization engine. This acquisition is aimed at enhancing Databricks' Lakebase, a managed Postgres offering, by integrating Electric's technology to address local state management for AI agents. PGlite has seen a significant increase in downloads, from 1 million to 13 million weekly, indicating growing developer interest in embedded databases. The acquisition reflects a trend towards decentralized databases for agents, with synchronization ensuring consistency between local and cloud databases. Databricks aims to strengthen its position in the evolving infrastructure for agent-runtime layers, focusing on state and synchronization capabilities.

Tech Optimizer

August 13, 2026

Electric joins Databricks to bring WASM Postgres to AI agent sandboxes

Databricks has acquired Electric, the team behind the open-source PGlite and real-time data synchronization technology, to enhance its Postgres capabilities. This acquisition aims to address challenges faced by AI developers in managing real-time, distributed state while minimizing network latency. Electric's technology will integrate with Databricks’ Lakebase infrastructure, allowing for production-scale Postgres capabilities in local execution environments. This development provides a unified Postgres standard for creating full-stack agentic applications across cloud and edge environments. Key features include local database access through PGlite within agent sandboxes and continuous real-time synchronization for multi-agent teams, maintaining central governance within Lakebase.

Tech Optimizer

August 12, 2026

Databricks acquires Electric to give every AI agent its own Postgres database

Databricks has acquired Electric, a startup known for its WASM-based Postgres project, PGlite, and the Electric sync engine. The Electric team will integrate with Neon, a serverless Postgres company acquired by Databricks for approximately billion last year. PGlite is a full Postgres database implemented in WebAssembly, capable of running in various environments and supporting dynamic extension loading, including pgvector. PGlite's weekly downloads increased from 1 million to 13 million over the past year. The Electric sync engine allows near real-time synchronization of a central Postgres database across platforms, similar to collaborative tools like Figma and Google Docs. Electric's founders have assured that all previously open-sourced components will remain accessible, while the hosted service, Electric Cloud, will be phased out. Databricks has noted that agents are now responsible for creating four times more databases than human users on Lakebase, with the average lifespan of a database compute instance being less than 10 seconds. The architecture of Lakebase separates storage from compute, facilitating cost-effective operations. PGlite originated from an experiment by Stas Kelvich, co-founder of Neon, who compiled Postgres to WASM, which Electric later developed into a production project.

Tech Optimizer

August 12, 2026

Databricks Acquires Electric to Give AI Agents Their Own Local Postgres

Databricks has acquired Electric, a company known for its contributions to the Postgres ecosystem, including PGlite, a compact version of Postgres for WebAssembly environments. This acquisition includes a real-time synchronization engine that keeps local data copies consistent with a central cloud database. Electric's team will join Neon, a serverless Postgres company previously acquired by Databricks. The integration aims to enhance Lakebase, Databricks' managed Postgres offering, by using PGlite for local data management. PGlite's weekly downloads surged from approximately 1 million to 13 million over the past year, indicating growing developer interest in embedded database models. The acquisition reflects a shift towards decentralized data management for AI agents, with synchronization mechanisms becoming crucial. Databricks is reinforcing its investment in Neon, signaling a deeper relevance of its Postgres offerings. The increase in PGlite downloads suggests early developer interest in local-first database architectures, though widespread production adoption remains uncertain. The emergence of state, identity, payments, isolation, and sync as infrastructure components indicates a competitive landscape for the agent runtime layer, with Databricks strategically positioned in this race.

Tech Optimizer

August 12, 2026

Dealroom.co | Databricks acquires Electric to bring Postgres to AI agent sandboxes

Databricks has acquired Electric, the creator of PGlite, a lightweight version of Postgres that operates within applications and user devices instead of relying on a separate server. This acquisition enhances Databricks' Postgres capabilities, allowing AI agents to maintain local Postgres instances while synchronizing with a central Lakebase Postgres system. Electric's real-time synchronization engine ensures that distributed agents remain aligned with a central record. The acquisition comes as companies shift towards agentic applications that require reliable data and rapidly changing local context. PGlite has gained significant traction, with weekly downloads increasing from 1 million to 13 million between August 2025 and August 2026. Databricks views Postgres as a foundational element for AI agents, emphasizing the importance of managing state, context, and synchronization among agents in the evolving landscape of AI systems.

Tech Optimizer

August 10, 2026

Microsoft’s PostgreSQL alternative, HorizonDB: Worth the wait?

AWS's Aurora PostgreSQL service became generally available in 2017 and has evolved into an AI-ready offering with features like vector search and integrations with Amazon Bedrock. Google Cloud launched AlloyDB in 2022, which includes AlloyDB AI with vector search and model interaction. Databricks introduced Lakebase, available on AWS and Azure in 2023, while Snowflake released Snowflake Postgres in February 2026. Microsoft announced HorizonDB at Ignite in November 2025, featuring disaggregated compute and storage, a database-as-log design, native vector search, and integration with Foundry and Fabric.