Postgres Father Thanks Oracle, Claims Its Acquisition of MySQL Boosted Postgres Rise
PostgreSQL founder Michael Stonebraker recently publicly thanked Oracle, stating that its acquisition of MySQL propelled the rise of Postgres.
After Oracle acquired MySQL in 2010, developers panicked and shifted to Postgres due to concerns over its dominance, marking the beginning of Postgres's ascent. Stonebraker noted that MySQL is disappearing as a competitor.
In September 2025, Oracle conducted large-scale layoffs of the core MySQL team. In 2023, PostgreSQL topped the list of the most popular databases among global developers, with Microsoft, Google, and Amazon building cloud services around its protocol.
Stonebraker pointed out that PostgreSQL is controlled by two to three dozen super programmers, representing the pinnacle of open source, with no single controller to fear since its inception.
In terms of market mechanisms, Oracle's acquisition triggered developer migration, with funding and adoption shifting from the MySQL ecosystem to PostgreSQL. The beneficiaries are the open source community and cloud vendors providing compatible services, while the pressure is on MySQL's long-term competitiveness.
Supplementary data shows that PostgreSQL has ranked among the most admired and desired databases in Stack Overflow surveys for several consecutive years.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Michael Stonebraker, as the founder of Ingres and PostgreSQL, has long criticized the inflexibility of closed-source databases and continues to innovate into his 80s. His views emphasize the advantages of open source without a single controller, contrasting with Oracle's commercialization path for MySQL.
In terms of capital, Oracle's acquisition and subsequent layoffs unintentionally enhanced Postgres's appeal, while cloud vendors' investment in compatible services further solidified its position. The motivation lies in developers' avoidance of single-vendor control, driving resources toward unowned open source protocols.
Similar cases can be seen with Red Hat and other open source projects experiencing community forks due to commercial acquisitions. We are currently in a phase where PostgreSQL is becoming the default choice for cloud and developers, while MySQL's influence continues to wane.
The structural judgment indicates a technological substitution: single-vendor control is replaced by distributed open governance, with the mechanism being that acquisitions trigger trust crises that accelerate migration, making decentralized control a source of long-term competitiveness.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
Acquisition of a competitor can be the best assist
No single owner can truly last
Panic migration often validates trends ahead of time