{"id":110173,"date":"2026-04-28T15:16:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T15:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/?p=110173"},"modified":"2026-09-21T11:28:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T11:28:29","slug":"what-are-the-top-database-platforms-in-2026-a-look-at-the-latest-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/databases\/what-are-the-top-database-platforms-in-2026-a-look-at-the-latest-data\/","title":{"rendered":"What are the top database platforms in 2026? A look at the latest data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The database market in 2026 remains stable at the top, with AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Google Cloud Platform leading by revenue. However, open-source and cloud-native platforms like MongoDB, Snowflake, and Databricks are gaining popularity – albeit very<\/em> slowly<\/strong> – as uncovered in the latest Gartner and DB-Engines data.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

TL;DR, for a new project the practical shortlist is: PostgreSQL or MySQL for general-purpose relational work, SQL Server or Oracle where the enterprise is already on them, MongoDB for document data, and Snowflake or Databricks for analytics – with the cloud providers’ managed versions of each as the default deployment. Full ranking and reasoning follows.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading research and analysis firm Gartner<\/a> recently revealed its DBMS Market Share Ranks for the 2011-2025 period, and it shows a clear pattern. That is: while the dominant database vendors are losing their stranglehold on the market, it’s happening very<\/em> slowly – so don’t expect to see big changes at the top any time soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a trend already uncovered in the Redgate DB-Engines<\/a> rankings in recent times, despite it using a very different set of metrics compared to Gartner’s analysis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gartner focuses on a ‘stack’ ranking of revenue, so popular systems like PostgreSQL<\/a> are only measured as part of commercial services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DB-Engines, on the other hand, looks at<\/a> individual system popularity. This includes tracking the number of Google searches for a system, mentions on online forums, LinkedIn and social media, job postings on Indeed, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means we have two very different, but equally insightful, sources of data for tracking the overall success and popularity of database platforms in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summarizing the Gartner and DB-Engines rankings (and the trend they’ve both uncovered)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Both rankings show a clear (but very gradual) rise of open-source, AI, and cloud-native platforms. We’re talking the likes of MongoDB<\/a>, Snowflake<\/a>, Databricks, Redis, IBM Db2, and Apache Cassandra. This momentum reflects the evolving nature of a database industry increasingly impacted by AI and the cloud<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, those systems make up more than half of the top ten in April\u2019s DB-Engines rankings, with Snowflake and Databricks performing particularly well<\/a>. Together, these platforms are (very) gently chipping away at the market leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n\n

Who are the current market leaders?<\/strong>
According to Gartner\u2019s data, they are AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Google Cloud Platform (in that order, by revenue). Over on DB-Engines, it\u2019s Oracle<\/a>, MySQL<\/a>, SQL Server<\/a> and PostgreSQL<\/a> leading the way on popularity \u2013 and that order has been static for the past 12 months. <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div> \n\n\n

However, while this trend is continuous, it is very<\/em> incremental. It\u2019s reasonable to assume that this is partly a consequence of the growth being spread across so many systems \u2013 not just one or two dominant players.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also safe to assume that the momentum will simply continue at this very steady pace \u2013 or may even slow further \u2013 as new systems are regularly introduced, and the existing platforms \u2018battle\u2019 one another. Outside of the DB-Engines top ten, there are hundreds<\/em> of databases rising and falling in popularity each month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply put: from what we currently know, don\u2019t expect to see major changes at the top for the time being. Oracle, MySQL, SQL Server and PostgreSQL still dominate the landscape, with MongoDB consistently up there as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How are the leading vendors performing against each other? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As mentioned, there have been no changes to the top four in the DB-Engines rankings in more than a year. Even Gartner\u2019s market share data \u2013 covering a significant 14-year period \u2013 doesn’t reveal quite as many dramatic moves as you may expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n\n

What was happening back in 2011?<\/strong>
Gartner\u2019s data is for the 2011-2025 period \u2013 a significant amount of time. To put it into perspective, back in 2011 Barack Obama was in the early days of his U.S presidency, Android smartphones were only just coming into prominence<\/a> (and BlackBerry was still a thing), Steve Jobs stood down from Apple (and they launched both Siri and iCloud alongside iPhone 4s<\/a>), Microsoft announced SQL Server 2012 at PASS Summit…<\/a>and Redgate were working on sending one lucky DBA to space.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div> \n\n\n

The most notable were AWS and Google Cloud Platform\u2019s rapid ascent, in line with the increasing popularity of the cloud<\/a> and cloud-adjacent databases. AWS moved from position seven in 2013 all the way to market leader by 2022, where it still stands today. And Google Cloud Platform jumped from even further down the order to position four by 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft and Oracle have both been remarkably consistent across the 14 years. Microsoft have held position two for most of that time (with two years on top in 2020\/2021), while Oracle was market leader for 8 years before falling to third in 2019. It still maintains that position today and, as previously noted, has also<\/em> maintained its position at the top of the DB-Engines rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was happening elsewhere?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Well, as Adam Ronthal (Vice President Analyst at Gartner) explained in his LinkedIn post<\/a> (where you can see the graph in full), it’s been a fairly steady few years even slightly further down the order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“With the exception of Tencent surpassing Huawei,” he explains, “there has been no churn for the top 17 vendors for the past 2 years.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Churn – to clarify – is the ‘Churn Index’. This is defined by Ronthal as “calculated as a percentage of vendors that either gained or lost market position in the stack ranking”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where can I see the full rankings of database platforms in 2026?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You’ll find Gartner’s DBMS Market Share Ranks: 2011-2025 graph in Adam Ronthal’s LinkedIn post<\/a>, alongside further insight and a promise of a more detailed analysis to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over on DB-Engines<\/a>, the rankings are published monthly, so expect to see the latest update this Friday, May 1st. Both the rankings<\/a> and the trend chart<\/a> are free to access. You’ll also find regular analysis of the rankings on the blog<\/a>, details of all 437 databases currently listed in the rankings<\/a>, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Simple Talk is brought to you by Redgate Software<\/h3>\n
\n Take control of your databases with the trusted Database DevOps solutions provider. Automate with confidence, scale securely, and unlock growth through AI. <\/div>\n <\/div>\n Discover how Redgate can help you<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n
\n

FAQs: What are the top databases in 2026?<\/h2>\n\n

1. What are the top database platforms worth considering for new projects in 2026?<\/h3>\n
\n

For relational work, PostgreSQL and MySQL (open source, huge ecosystems) or SQL Server and Oracle where the organisation already runs them; for document data, MongoDB; for analytics, Snowflake and Databricks; and for each, the managed version from AWS, Azure or Google Cloud as the default way to run it. Market share is stable at the top and growth is in cloud-native and open-source platforms.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

2. Who are the top database vendors by revenue?<\/h3>\n
\n

AWS, Microsoft, Oracle and Google Cloud, in that order in the latest Gartner data, with the cloud providers’ share growing and traditional licensing shrinking. The page’s summary table gives the figures.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n

3. Which databases are growing fastest?<\/h3>\n
\n

MongoDB, Snowflake and Databricks in the DB-Engines popularity data – slowly, from a small base – along with PostgreSQL among the traditional engines. None is displacing the leaders in the short term.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The top database platforms in 2026 by revenue and popularity – AWS, Microsoft, Oracle and Google leading; MongoDB, Snowflake, Databricks growing.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59127,"featured_media":107008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143523,53,159161,145792,143533,143534,143524],"tags":[4168,5618,5854,4459,158978,4150,4151],"coauthors":[7590],"class_list":["post-110173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-databases","category-featured","category-mongodb","category-mysql","category-oracle-databases","category-postgresql","category-sql-server","tag-database","tag-mongodb","tag-mysql","tag-oracle","tag-postgresql","tag-sql","tag-sql-server"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110173"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113155,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110173\/revisions\/113155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110173"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=110173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}