Open Source PostgreSQL extension for graph database functionality in use in government agencies, research and education institutions, utility providers, and more.

Wilmington, DE —8 June 2022— The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of more than 350 Open Source projects and initiatives, announced today Apache® AGE™ as a Top-Level Project (TLP).

Apache AGE ("A Graph Extension") is a PostgreSQL extension that provides graph database functionality. The project was originally developed in 2019 as an extension to AgensGraph (Bitnine Global's multi-model database fork of PostgreSQL), and entered the Apache Incubator in April 2020.

"It is incredible to see how far the AGE project has come to its maturity by graduating as a Top-Level Project from the Apache Incubator, which demonstrates the project's ability to self-govern, and furthermore to be a part of the broader ASF community," said Eya Badal Abdisho, Vice President of Apache AGE. "With AGE, our goal is to provide a multi-model database that is designed to be simple and user-friendly, which simultaneously supports the relational and graph data model. AGE enables users to integrate the legacy relational data model and the flexible graph data model in one database."

AGE is a PostgreSQL extension that adds graph query functionality to Postgresql. Through using the Cypher query language in accordance with the openCypher specification, users can access, store and query graph data using PostgreSQL. Users may read and write nodes and edges stored in Postgres, as well as use various algorithms such as variable length edge traversal to analyze data in AGE. Other features include:

  • Support for openCypher query language
  • Hybrid querying using SQL and Cypher
  • Querying multiple graphs
  • Property indexes on both vertices and edges
  • Integration with Postgres' existing features


Hybrid queries are queries using both openCypher and SQL together. These queries allow data to move between the regular relational database and the graph representation that AGE provides.

AGE is in use across a variety of user organizations, including government agencies, research and education institutions, and utility providers, among others.

"We are very pleased that Apache AGE is the first formal graph database project of the Apache Software Foundation to achieve top-level graduation. We believe that it is a result that proves the development of the only graph database extension based on RDB," said Cheolsun Kang, CEO of Bitnine Global. "In the future, Bitnine Global will continue to support the development of Apache AGE. We are advancing our product by developing a service subscription model based on Apache AGE product support."

"I have been advising my clients to watch this space. The potential of Apache AGE, as a multi-model database, to fill an unmet ‘best of both worlds’ niche was evident," said Jasper Blues, CEO of Liberation Data. "With the community behind it, I’m not at all surprised in the way that AGE has blazed ahead towards that prospective future.

Congratulations to the Apache AGE community on the successes to date! With this graduation milestone, I’m proud to recommend AGE to a number of clients in the SE Asia/Oceania region. For them, a CYPHER-compatible ACID graphDB built on a rock solid foundation is perfect for their business cases."

"Postgres’s fundamental architecture has created a rich ecosystem of extensions and made Postgres the de-facto choice for developers and enterprises looking for a next-generation flagship data platform. AGE continues to build on that tradition and adds powerful graph analytics functionality to the traditional relational data platforms," said Mehboob Alam, Postgres community advocate. "Melding traditional analytics and real-time graph intelligence is going to be a game-changer and AGE will be instrumental in this exciting future."

The project recently released Apache AGE v1.0.0-incubating, the sixth release whilst undergoing development in the Apache Incubator. Future releases of Apache AGE will support PostgreSQL 12 and higher, more key features from AgensGraph, and will be further improved to be a compatibility extension for all relational DB, starting with integration into MySQL and MariaDB.

"Graduating as an Apache Top-Level Project is only the beginning, our journey continues through the excellent efforts of the greater Apache AGE community," added Badal Abdisho. "Join our community. We always welcome new additions and contributions to the Apache AGE project to help data communities explore and utilize the benefits of graph technologies, under the Apache Way."

Catch Apache AGE in action at ApacheCon Asia 2022 (29-31 July; https://apachecon.com/acasia2022/), and PostgreSQL Conference Europe (25-28 October; https://2022.pgconf.eu/)

Availability and Oversight
Apache AGE software is released under the Apache License v2.0 and is overseen by a self-selected team of active contributors to the project. A Project Management Committee (PMC) guides the Project's day-to-day operations, including community development and product releases. For downloads, documentation, and ways to become involved with Apache AGE, visit https://age.apache.org and https://twitter.com/apache_age .

About the Apache Incubator
The Apache Incubator is the primary entry path for projects and codebases wishing to become part of the efforts at The Apache Software Foundation. All code donations from external organizations and existing external projects enter the ASF through the Incubator to: 1) ensure all donations are in accordance with the ASF legal standards; and 2) develop new communities that adhere to our guiding principles. Incubation is required of all newly accepted projects until a further review indicates that the infrastructure, communications, and decision making process have stabilized in a manner consistent with other successful ASF projects. While incubation status is not necessarily a reflection of the completeness or stability of the code, it does indicate that the project has yet to be fully endorsed by the ASF. For more information, visit http://incubator.apache.org/ . 

About The Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
Established in 1999, The Apache Software Foundation is the world's largest Open Source foundation, stewarding 227M+ lines of code and providing more than $22B+ worth of software to the public at 100% no cost. The ASF’s all-volunteer community grew from 21 original founders overseeing the Apache HTTP Server to 820+ individual Members and 200 Project Management Committees who successfully lead 350+ Apache projects and initiatives in collaboration with 8,400+ Committers through the ASF's meritocratic process known as "The Apache Way". Apache software is integral to nearly every end user computing device, from laptops to tablets to mobile devices across enterprises and mission-critical applications. Apache projects power most of the Internet, manage exabytes of data, execute teraflops of operations, and store billions of objects in virtually every industry. The commercially-friendly and permissive Apache License v2 is an Open Source industry standard, helping launch billion dollar corporations and benefiting countless users worldwide. The ASF is a US 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable organization funded by individual donations and corporate sponsors that include Aetna, Alibaba Cloud Computing, Amazon Web Services, Anonymous, Baidu, Bloomberg, Capital One, Cloudera, Comcast, Confluent, Didi Chuxing, Facebook, Google, Huawei, IBM, Indeed, LINE Corporation, Microsoft, Namebase, Pineapple Fund, Red Hat, Replicated, Salesforce, Talend, Target, Tencent, Union Investment, VMware, Workday, and Yahoo. For more information, visit http://apache.org/ and https://twitter.com/TheASF . 

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