SelectDB

About SelectDB

SelectDB, registered as Beijing Flywheel Data Technology Co., Ltd., is a data technology firm that provides a cloud-native, real-time analytical data warehouse. Founded in 2021 by the core developers of the open-source project Apache Doris, the company aims to address the rising demand for real-time big data processing across various industries. The founding team's journey began at Baidu, where Apache Doris, formerly Palo, was created to support the ad reporting business before being open-sourced in 2017 and donated to the Apache Software Foundation in 2018. This deep-rooted experience with the underlying technology has guided SelectDB's mission to build enterprise-grade products and services around the robust, high-performance Apache Doris core. The company has secured significant financial backing, raising nearly CNY 1 billion in three rounds within its first year from investors like IDG Capital, Sequoia China, and Hongshan Capital Group.

The firm's business model centers on commercializing the Apache Doris open-source database, a strategy common among successful open-source projects where a company provides enterprise-level support, advanced features, and managed services. SelectDB generates revenue through two primary product offerings: SelectDB Cloud and SelectDB Enterprise. SelectDB Cloud is a fully managed, serverless database-as-a-service (DBaaS) available on major public clouds like AWS, GCP, and Alibaba Cloud. This offering is designed for clients who prefer a hands-off approach to infrastructure management. For organizations requiring more control over their environment, SelectDB Enterprise provides a self-managed software distribution that can be deployed on-premises, in private clouds, or on bare metal. The company serves a global client base across sectors such as finance, internet, and manufacturing, helping them build applications for user behavior analysis, real-time reporting, and log analysis.

At the heart of SelectDB's offerings is the Apache Doris Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architecture, which enables exceptionally fast query processing on massive datasets. This allows for sub-second query responses, supporting both high-concurrency point queries and complex analytical tasks. The platform is designed to be a unified system, capable of handling structured and semi-structured data, including JSON, and can perform real-time, interactive, and batch processing. A key benefit is its ability to unify data warehouses and data lakes, allowing enterprises to manage a single system for diverse analytical workloads, thereby reducing technical complexity and operational costs. The system is compatible with the MySQL protocol, simplifying integration with existing business intelligence tools and ecosystems.