Tournament of Databases: The Winner!

And we have a winner! It was a busy weekend of match ups and we have our champion.

Round 2 Results

#1 Oracle vs. #2 MongoDB – Winner = Oracle

Oracle has too much enterprise credibility to overcome and they outlast the document database fans to win its matchup.

#1 MySQL vs. #3 DuckDB – Winner = MySQL

While in-process analytics are gaining in importance, the versatility and transactional nature of MySQL makes this a comfortable win for MySQL. 

#1 PostgreSQL vs. #2 Snowflake – Winner =  PostgreSQL

This was a match up of heavyweights with a battle of OTLP leader vs. OLAP leader. A classic matchup of different styles. Ultimately, the open source community of committers and extensions carried PostgreSQL to the victory.  

#1 SQL Server vs. #2 Databricks – Winner = SQL Server

Another battle of styles, where the enterprise chops of SQL Server go up against the momentum of Databricks in data management. Ultimately, Microsoft ability to to recruit from the transfer portal was enough to squeak by Databricks in this last second decision.  

Round 3 Results

#1 Oracle vs. #1 MySQL – Winner = MySQL

It’s the age-old story of the protege vs. the parent figure. Oracle is the owner of both databases but only one is open source. That open source ability allows the community to pull together to push it to victory. This was really a match up of proprietary vs. open source, and today, at least, open source has carried the day. 

#1 PostgreSQL vs. #1 SQL Server – Winner = PostgreSQL

In what has become a theme of the tournament, it’s an open source juggernaut vs. the incumbent proprietary database. While SQL Server had all the support of the windows community, the overall open source community were able to hold on to win. The unsung hero was the extension authors that make PostgreSQL the innovation platform it is.  

Championship Game Results

#1 PostgreSQL vs. #1 MySQL

I think we can all agree that tournaments and databases are better when there are two open source powerhouses to compete. This is the renewal of a 30+ year rivalry and it surely didn’t disappoint. The community and extensions of PostgreSQL showed up when it counted and had MySQL on the ropes in the second hard. Ultimately, the multi-threaded nature of MySQL and its default replication wich have been the bedrock of MySQL usage, were able to hold of Postgres and seal the victory and the championship.

Champion = MySQL 

Summary:

What a thrilling end to the tournament. In the end, it was going to a two horse race by the open source OLTP leaders. It was just a question of which was going to outlast the other. The real winner was open source and the communities that support them, so keep supporting your favorite open source project.

Congrats to MySQL! The winner of the 2026 Tournament of Databases.  

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