Excellent! hmmm... version 1.0.0-beta. Am I the only one a bit nervous basing a start-up on something this fresh? I'd certainly like to contribute to open source, but in a post launch, here's a toolkit/library sort of way, not by debugging a low level database library weeks before launch or worse post-launch. I've used memcached (not db) and love it.

This new cousin would be ideal for me. Is anyone else considering it? I need a flexible object database. I've looked at CouchDB or something based off of qdbm (http://qdbm.sourceforge.net). Currently working on other parts of the system (and delaying the persistence part).

Yeah, I'd have to run it internally for a while before unleashing it in the wild. Definitely not something I'd want to do while building a new business.

As for alternatives, have a look at thrudb. It's new too but is being used in production by a few decent sized sites.

Is the "-beta" really necessary if the version is 1.0.0?

This is f*cking awesome. Great job!

so, in other words, a really badly designed database system?

No, it's a specialized persistence system. Not everyone wants or needs the truckload of other stuff that bogs down a traditional relational database.

I totally agree. Simple key/value stores are extremely valuable. Their simplicity also requires you to simplify your problems. In many cases you find out that you really don't need that 5 line sql query to join 8 tables.