# slatedb/slatedb

A cloud native embedded storage engine built on object storage.

Repository: https://github.com/slatedb/slatedb
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/slatedb
Homepage: https://slatedb.io
Language: Rust
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: database, embedded-database, lsm-tree, object-storage, storage-engine, rust, rocksdb
Last push: 2026-08-26T21:15:26+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 90/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 95, longevity 63
- inputs: {"age_days": 890, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 35, "gap_med": 18.5, "n_releases_24m": 27}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3356, forks 289 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:57.918162+00:00)

## What it is
SlateDB is an embedded key-value storage engine implemented in Rust as a log-structured merge-tree (LSM) that persists all data to object storage like S3, GCS, and Azure Blob instead of local disks. It offers single-writer/multiple-reader semantics, snapshot isolation, transactions, read caching, and zero-copy clones, with official bindings for Go, Java, Node.js, and Python.

## Use cases
- build a key-value database with bottomless storage on S3
- replace RocksDB where local disks are undesirable
- store application state durably in object storage without running a database server
- scale read traffic with multiple readers against one shared dataset
- create zero-copy database clones or forks from checkpoints
- tune write durability versus API cost for cloud-native workloads

## When to choose
- you want an embedded LSM engine with no local disk or replication protocol
- you need the durability and economics of S3-class object storage
- you want single-writer with multiple read replicas backed by a shared object store
- you need snapshot isolation, transactions, or cheap zero-copy clones

## When to avoid
- you need low-latency writes; object store PUT latency (50-100ms on standard tiers) dominates
- your workload is write-heavy and object store API costs or rate limits would be prohibitive
- you need multi-writer concurrency or a full SQL database
- you need a mature battle-tested engine like RocksDB for latency-critical local storage

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: database, caching, serialization
- domain: databases, cloud-computing, developer-tools, microservices
- platform: rust, go, python, jvm, cross-platform, cloud
- tags: lsm-tree, object-storage, embedded-database, key-value-store, storage-engine, s3, rocksdb-alternative, zero-disk, snapshot-isolation, nodejs

## Member repositories
- slatedb/slatedb (main) score 90

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:57.918162+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:40:55.541994+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/slatedb/slatedb (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:57.918162+00:00, sha 0629b5f29172)
  - homepage: https://slatedb.io (fetched 2026-08-29T09:34:01.462802+00:00, sha bfce0c700b3c)
  - site_page: https://slatedb.io/docs/get-started/introduction (fetched 2026-08-29T09:34:01.465368+00:00, sha f5bbaa1e3197)
  - site_page: https://slatedb.io/docs/get-started/quickstart (fetched 2026-08-29T09:34:01.467174+00:00, sha 2bd3216a102f)
  - site_page: https://slatedb.io/docs/operations/configuration (fetched 2026-08-29T09:34:01.468999+00:00, sha 44911481fc9e)
  - site_page: https://slatedb.io/docs/design/overview (fetched 2026-08-29T09:34:01.470629+00:00, sha b884b27a8735)
  - site_page: https://slatedb.io/docs/design/readers (fetched 2026-08-29T09:34:01.472546+00:00, sha baa534f5cde4)
  - site_page: https://slatedb.io/docs/design/consistency (fetched 2026-08-29T09:34:01.474572+00:00, sha 461c3295b7df)
  - site_page: https://slatedb.io/docs/operations/tuning (fetched 2026-08-29T09:34:01.476248+00:00, sha 243b81e5f212)
  - site_page: https://slatedb.io/docs/design/clones (fetched 2026-08-29T09:34:01.478014+00:00, sha 77e592a80570)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.