The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Product decision · 2018–2026
EdgeDB bet EdgeQL could replace SQL on Postgres; Gel wound down, team joined Vercel
An open-source graph-relational database wrapped PostgreSQL in a new query language; after a 947-point Show HN, Gel Cloud shut down and the team joined Vercel.
EdgeDB (Gel Data Inc.)
What the business is
EdgeDB (later Gel) is an open-source graph-relational database: PostgreSQL runs underneath while EdgeQL, a new query language with a declarative schema, automatic migrations and typed first-party clients, replaces SQL for application developers.
How it started
Yury Selivanov and Elvis Pranskevichus, whose earlier work included uvloop, asyncpg and CPython async support, began building EdgeDB around 2018 after concluding that databases' developer experience had not kept up with modern applications: SQL's interface, they argued, still belonged to the mainframe era, and ORMs patched the object-relational mismatch instead of removing it. The team then spent four years in development and shipped 15 pre-releases before declaring 1.0.
What happened
EdgeDB 1.0 launched as open source on 2022-02-10 with the graph-relational model on PostgreSQL, EdgeQL, declarative schema with interactive migrations, serializable transactions, and a native JS/TS query builder, promising 2.0 within months and a managed cloud. The Show HN drew 947 points and 323 comments: the team defended wrapping Postgres instead of forking it, fielded comparisons to Hasura, Prisma and Dgraph, and said the goal was never making developers drop to SQL. The managed cloud later shipped as Gel Cloud while Gel stayed open source.
How it ended up
On 2025-12-02 Gel Data Inc. announced it was shutting down: the team was joining Vercel to help build its Python cloud, Gel Cloud would stop accepting new registrations immediately and close fully on 2026-01-31, and Gel would remain open source and self-hostable. In the same announcement, founder Yury Selivanov recalled a seed-round VC warning that the company was 'boiling the ocean' — rebuilding the whole database front-end plus a cloud proved too broad to converge fast enough.
Background
EdgeDB is an open-source graph-relational database, later renamed Gel: PostgreSQL runs underneath while developers get a new query language (EdgeQL), a declarative schema, automatic migrations and typed first-party clients. The 1.0 release on 2022-02-10 capped four years of development and 15 pre-releases, and its Show HN thread reached 947 points with 323 comments.
The bet was that the developer experience of databases had not kept up with modern applications — that SQL's interface still belonged to the mainframe era and ORMs only patched the object-relational mismatch. Founders Yury Selivanov and Elvis Pranskevichus, known for uvloop, asyncpg and CPython async work, rebuilt the entire database front-end on PostgreSQL: a graph-relational data model, EdgeQL with relationships first-class, and tooling that keeps data invariants in the database rather than in an ORM. They called this riskier than building a new SQL database from scratch.
At launch the team defended the architecture in an all-day thread, explaining why EdgeQL compiles to a single SQL query, comparing against Hasura, Prisma and Dgraph, and stating the goal that developers should never need to drop down to SQL. The company went on to ship more releases and a managed cloud, Gel Cloud, while keeping the database open source.
On 2025-12-02 Gel Data Inc. announced its shutdown: the team joined Vercel to help build its Python cloud, Gel Cloud closed fully on 2026-01-31, and Gel remained open source and self-hostable. Founder Yury Selivanov's own postscript was that rebuilding the entire front-end — data model, query language, migrations, clients and a cloud — was 'boiling the ocean'.
What has to be true
- The harder bet was deliberate: the founders wrote that building a new SQL database from scratch would have been safer than recasting PostgreSQL with a new data model and query language.
- The pain was concrete and measurable: nested data forced verbose joins or ORM round-trips, so EdgeQL's one-shot typed queries attacked a cost every application team felt.
- An open-source launch on Hacker News with a live all-day AMA put the product in front of the exact audience that evaluates databases: 947 points and 323 comments on 2022-02-10.
- Wrapping Postgres created a category problem that never resolved: buyers asked if EdgeDB was a database or an ORM, while building schema, migrations, clients and a cloud spread the company thin.
- Even the shutdown returned value: the team's Python and Postgres expertise moved intact to Vercel's Python cloud, and the open-source Gel project outlived the company.
What can be applied
Developer love is not enough when the category is unclear: Gel rebuilt the whole front-end yet stayed stuck between 'new database' and 'ORM'; the wedge must fit a category buyers understand.
Aftermath
As of the 2026-09-05 snapshot, Gel Data Inc. had wound down: Gel Cloud was fully shut down on 2026-01-31 and the team joined Vercel to work on Python infrastructure, per the company's 2025-12-02 announcement, which also published migration guides to managed Postgres and kept Gel open source and self-hostable. Only the company's own announcement documented the wind-down in the sources reviewed here, so this entry reports the outcome as Gel announced it.
Sources
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe what you are building, and see who is betting on the same thing.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card