The Linux Foundation | 25 August 2025
The DocumentDB project will establish a new open standard for NoSQL databases while continuing to build on PostgreSQL under permissive MIT license
AMSTERDAM – Open Source Summit Europe – 25 August 2025 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced that DocumentDB, a fast-growing open source document database, has joined the foundation as an open source project under the permissive MIT license. Following its launch by Microsoft earlier this year, DocumentDB has rapidly gained momentum within the developer community, accumulating nearly 2,000 GitHub stars and 100s of contributions, feedback, and adoption. To learn more, visit the repo at github.com/documentdb-io/documentdb.
DocumentDB project began in 2024 as a pair of PostgreSQL extensions designed by Microsoft to add support for popular BSON data models and document queries to the PostgreSQL ecosystem. It has since evolved into a complete, user-friendly, MIT-licensed open source document database solution on top of PostgreSQL, compatible with the popular open source MongoDB drivers. PostgreSQL is a natural choice for the foundation given its popularity and extensibility. In this new chapter of growth under the Linux Foundation, DocumentDB is carving out a path where document databases are open, interoperable, and standardized.
“DocumentDB fills a critical gap in the document database ecosystem, attracting contributors, users and champions. What’s even more exciting is it provides an open standard for document based applications,like what SQL did for relational databases,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. “By joining the Linux Foundation, DocumentDB is securing its open source future and helping chart a new path for NoSQL database standards and community-driven innovation.”
Linux Foundation governance of the DocumentDB project upholds vendor-neutrality, encourages broader collaboration, and maintains DocumentDB’s commitment to remaining PostgreSQL-first.
“We built DocumentDB with a simple goal: give developers an open document database with the flexibility of NoSQL and the power, reliability, openness, and ecosystem of Postgres,” said Kirill Gavrylyuk, vice president at Microsoft. “In just a few months, the community has embraced the project. By joining the Linux Foundation, we’re deepening our commitment to transparency, open governance, and developer-first principles – ensuring DocumentDB remains an open, extensible document database developers can confidently build on for years to come.”
The project already gathered wide participation and support from the industry including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cockroach Labs, Google, Microsoft, Rippling, SingleStore, Snowflake, Supabase, Ubicloud, and Yugabyte. Interest from longtime PostgreSQL contributors and supporters further contributes to the project’s success.
“It’s great that Microsoft, AWS and others are joining forces to work on DocumentDB, an open source implementation of a MongoDB-compatible API on top of PostgreSQL. Microsoft and AWS already work together to enhance Postgres, so it is logical they would use the high-quality Postgres source code and leverage its extensibility to meet the need for an open source document database,” said Bruce Momjian, founding member of the PostgreSQL core development team. “The idea of using Postgres in this way has been around for a long time so I am glad it is now getting serious traction. DocumentDB should be an interesting alternative to users wanting an open source implementation, and for database users who just want a simpler interface to PostgreSQL.”
By joining the Linux Foundation, DocumentDB reaffirms its core mission: to build an open, interoperable and developer-friendly document database on top of PostgreSQL. To learn more about DocumentDB’s future development, monitor issues, and engage in discussions visit github.com/documentdb/documentdb and join the community on Discord.
Supporting Quotes
“AWS is excited to contribute to the open source DocumentDB project, now stewarded by the Linux Foundation. DocumentDB, a permissively licensed database for implementing the MongoDB API, and an extension to PostgreSQL, the world’s leading open source database, advances a future where developers can rest assured that their applications are portable and compatible.”
— Adam Abrevaya, director, Amazon DocumentDB
"PostgreSQL has withstood the test of time because of its tremendous versatility and extensibility. That includes document database capabilities, and the open source DocumentDB project makes that extremely simple for developers already familiar with MongoDB. This is an excellent addition to the Postgres ecosystem."
— Spencer Kimball, co-founder and CEO, Cockroach Labs
“Document databases play an important role in customers’ database estates and ensuring customers have sufficient choice in this area is important. It is great to see the DocumentDB project joining the Linux Foundation which assures customers and the community have an openly-governed, open-source option available to them.”
— Sailesh Krishnamurthy, vice president, engineering, Google Cloud
“We are excited about the formation of the open source DocumentDB project under the Linux Foundation. Having a neutral, permissively licensed, open source compatible database ensures that ISVs like Rippling can count on the MongoDB API becoming even more widely adopted for managing document database workloads. We look forward to contributing our large scale data interoperability tooling to the open source DocumentDB Linux Foundation project.”
— Albert Strasheim, CTO, Rippling
“Distributed databases are an important part of the modern stack and a core expertise of SingleStore. It is great to see a community driven, open distributed document database project with true open source permissive license, and broad industry participation. With our recently launched MongoDB compatible offering we are excited to explore compatibility with DocumentDB. We are particularly encouraged by the project joining the Linux Foundation as it ensures open collaboration.”
— Nadeem Asghar, chief product and technology officer, SingleStore
"It’s fulfilling to welcome the DocumentDB project into the community and lay the foundation for expansion of PostgreSQL to document data use cases. Semi-structured data plays a critical role in the era of AI, as we’ve seen with Snowflake’s strong commitment to Postgres through the recent acquisition of Crunchy Data. Bringing DocumentDB into the Linux Foundation and the Postgres ecosystem will open up an entirely new set of AI use cases that engineers are excited to instrument."
— Craig Kerstiens, Chief Product Officer at Crunchy Data (acquired by Snowflake June 2025)
"We love Postgres innovation at Supabase. The DocumentDB project enriches Postgres with first-class support for BSON, and provides simple hooks via a Postgres extension. DocumentDB joining the Linux Foundation is a strong commitment to the open source and developer community - another thing we value at Supabase. We look forward to the next set of innovations coming from this team."
— Paul Copplestone, Chief Executive Officer, Supabase
"Portability across clouds is central to Ubicloud’s mission. That’s why we are excited about DocumentDB’s goal to provide a true open source, standard document database engine that can run anywhere. The project’s alignment with open standards and its move to the Linux Foundation gives us confidence that this will foster a truly vendor-neutral, community-driven future for document databases. It’s also great to see DocumentDB’s choice of PostgreSQL at its foundation and its work to expand the PostgreSQL ecosystem with stronger support for JSON (BSON). We look forward to offering it on Ubicloud in the future."
— Umur Cubukcu, Co-CEO and Co-founder, Ubicloud
“By contributing DocumentDB to the Linux Foundation, Microsoft is ensuring the community's ownership of the project. This move underscores our shared commitment to advancing open source innovation and empowering developers with powerful, flexible tools built on PostgreSQL. Collaborating with Microsoft on the DocumentDB extension for YugabyteDB has been an exciting project, and we look forward to joining the technical steering committee and continuing to contribute to the roadmap of distributed document databases together.”
— Karthik Ranganathan, co-founder and CEO, Yugabyte
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