# terminusdb/terminusdb

TerminusDB is a distributed, collaborative database designed for building, sharing, versioning, and reasoning on structured data.

Repository: https://github.com/terminusdb/terminusdb
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/terminusdb
Homepage: https://terminusdb.org
Language: Prolog
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: knowledge-graphs, linked-data, terminusdb, collaboration, revision-control, immutable, document-database, graph-database, acid, database, nosql, open-source, opensource, cms, headless, headless-cms
Last push: 2026-08-10T14:54:19+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 93/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 97, release rhythm 85, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2598, "days_push": 23, "days_rel": 23, "gap_med": 47, "n_releases_24m": 12}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3394, forks 150 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:59.222393+00:00)

## What it is
TerminusDB is an open-source document graph database with built-in git-like version control, storing JSON/JSON-LD documents in a schema-enforced knowledge graph. It supports branching, diffing, merging, cloning, time-travel queries, and querying via a REST document API, GraphQL, or the WOQL datalog query language.

## Use cases
- version control for JSON data with branch, diff, and merge
- build and query a knowledge graph from JSON documents
- time-travel queries against historical database states
- auditable data lineage for regulated industries
- collaborative data products with push/pull/clone workflows
- headless CMS with schema-enforced structured content
- complex graph queries without SQL joins using WOQL or GraphQL

## When to choose
- you need immutable history, branching, and merging for structured data
- you want document-store ergonomics combined with graph traversal
- you need auditable, ACID-compliant changes for compliance-heavy domains
- you want a closed-world RDF knowledge graph with a JSON document API

## When to avoid
- you need a simple key-value or wide-column store at massive scale
- your team depends on a large ecosystem of standard SQL tooling
- you want a fully managed hosted database without self-hosting
- you need mature third-party integrations comparable to mainstream databases

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: active
- function: database, search-engine, graphql, http-server, version-control, serialization
- domain: databases, developer-tools, apis, cms
- platform: windows, self-hosted, cross-platform
- tags: graph-database, knowledge-graph, git-for-data, -ld, document-database, rdf, woql, time-travel, branching, immutable-history, nosql, headless-cms, datalog, search, data-engineering, linux, macos, docker, web-server

## Member repositories
- terminusdb/terminusdb (main) score 93

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:59.222393+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 2026-08-29T18:38:59.607481+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/terminusdb/terminusdb (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:59.222393+00:00, sha 791db7e4d6c0)
  - homepage: https://terminusdb.org (fetched 2026-08-29T09:33:25.473131+00:00, sha 6784024fa694)
  - site_page: https://terminusdb.org/docs/topics (fetched 2026-08-29T09:33:25.475918+00:00, sha 483bb02979b7)
  - site_page: https://terminusdb.org/docs/start-here (fetched 2026-08-29T09:33:25.477727+00:00, sha 0f9c038a41d4)
  - site_page: https://terminusdb.org/docs/whats-new (fetched 2026-08-29T09:33:25.479493+00:00, sha 2250dd5327b3)
  - site_page: https://terminusdb.org/docs/get-started (fetched 2026-08-29T09:33:25.482359+00:00, sha aec9ed0d727a)
  - site_page: https://terminusdb.org/docs/unification-of-variables-in-datalog (fetched 2026-08-29T09:33:25.484250+00:00, sha b26eb163b5c1)
  - site_page: https://terminusdb.org/docs/terminusdb-explanation (fetched 2026-08-29T09:33:25.486202+00:00, sha c37591c95a59)
  - site_page: https://terminusdb.org/docs/documents-explanation (fetched 2026-08-29T09:33:25.488057+00:00, sha dcad18b18cd4)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.