The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Product decision · 2021–2026
InstantDB bets client-side relational DB beats Firebase; Show HN 1,145 points
Joe and Stopa's client-side relational database (auth, offline, multiplayer by default) drew a 1,145-point Show HN and 10.5k GitHub stars.
InstantDB
What the business is
Instant (InstantDB) is a hosted or self-hostable client-side database: relational data stored as triples in Postgres, queried in the shape you want from JavaScript, React or React Native, with auth, permissions, presence, offline persistence and optimistic updates built in, free at small scale with paid plans that scale.
How it started
Joe and Stopa, senior and staff engineers at Facebook and Airbnb, kept rebuilding servers, endpoints, stores and selectors for every feature. In 2021 Stopa wrote that these schleps are database problems in disguise, and in 2022 sketched a relational Firebase as the fix. They got the backing of James Tamplin (CEO of Firebase), built a five-engineer team, pushed roughly 2,000 commits, and open-sourced InstantDB in a 2024-08-22 Show HN.
What happened
The Show HN drew 1,145 points and 297 comments. Skeptics asked what made it modern versus Firebase or PocketBase; the founders answered with relations, a datalog engine over Postgres triples and WAL tailing, citing Asana's WorldStore and Figma's LiveGraph, while commenters started shipping real apps — one replaced Firebase in a notes app and another built a bouldering log. By the 2026-09-04 crawl the repo had 10.5k stars, 398 forks and 2,511 commits, and the README's positioning had shifted to 'the best backend for AI-coded apps'.
How it ended up
Still running as of 2026-09-04: the repo is live at 10.5k stars and 2,511 commits with a hosted free tier, paid plans and self-hosting; the record contains no funding, revenue or customer-count disclosures.
Background
Joe and Stopa were senior and staff engineers at Facebook and Airbnb who kept rebuilding the same plumbing — servers, endpoints, stores, selectors, optimistic updates — for every feature. In 2021 Stopa wrote that these schleps are actually database problems in disguise, and in 2022 he sketched the fix: a Firebase-like database with relations, so developers could query the data they wanted without maintaining a backend.
The company built that database as InstantDB: all user data stored as triples in one Postgres instance, a Clojure sync server tailing the WAL for changes, and a datalog query engine hidden behind InstaQL, a GraphQL-like language with no build step. Clients subscribe straight from the browser or React Native, with permissions, offline persistence and optimistic rollbacks handled by the SDK — multiplayer and offline by default, inspired by Asana's WorldStore and Figma's LiveGraph.
The 2024-08-22 Show HN drew 1,145 points and 297 comments. Skeptics asked what was modern about it versus Firebase or PocketBase; the founders pointed to relations and the datalog-over-Postgres architecture, and developers in the thread began building on it immediately — replacing Firebase in a notes app, starting a bouldering app, asking for aggregate queries. James Tamplin, Firebase's CEO, backed the team from the early days.
By the 2026-09-04 crawl the repo carried 10.5k stars, 398 forks and 2,511 commits, and the README had repositioned from 'a modern Firebase' to 'the best backend for AI-coded apps', adding auth, storage, presence and streams. The company is still running with hosted free and paid tiers; no funding, revenue or customer numbers appear in the record.
What has to be true
- Dated platform traction: the 2024-08-22 Show HN drew 1,145 points and 297 comments, one of the largest developer-tool launches of that cycle.
- A verifiable trajectory: the repo went from open-source launch to 10.5k stars, 398 forks and 2,511 commits by the 2026-09-04 crawl.
- A genuine architectural bet: put the database on the client over a datalog/Postgres core so realtime, offline and permissions are properties of the data layer, not features to build per app.
- The founders wrote the thesis first: the 2021–22 essays gave the launch a testable prediction — 'schleps are database problems in disguise' — instead of a feature list.
What can be applied
A manifesto naming the incumbent's structural flaw — Firebase's document model and hand-rolled sync — turns a database launch into a movement and lets architecture carry the comparison.
Aftermath
As of 2026-09-05 Instant is live and still shipping: the instantdb/instant repo carried 10.5k stars, 398 forks and 2,511 commits at the 2026-09-04 crawl, with a hosted free tier that never pauses projects, paid plans, and self-hosting for the backend and dashboard. The README now positions Instant as the backend for AI-coded apps, adding auth, permissions, storage, presence and streams to the original client-side database. No funding rounds, revenue or customer counts are disclosed anywhere in the record, so commercial traction beyond developer adoption is unverified.
Sources
- Show HN: InstantDB – A Modern Firebase (1,145 points, 297 comments)
- instantdb/instant — client-side relational database (10.5k stars, 398 forks, 2,511 commits)
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