dolt

Dolt is a distributed SQL database that combines a relational SQL engine with Git-like version control for data. Developed by Dolthub, it enables teams to track changes to tables and schemas over time, create branches for experiments, and merge updates from multiple contributors while preserving a complete history of the dataset.

Data is stored as commits in a graph that records both data and metadata. Each commit captures the state of the database at a point in time; branches allow parallel work, and merges reconcile changes, with conflict resolution when the same rows or schema elements are modified in multiple branches.

Interface: Dolt provides a SQL interface, typically through a MySQL-compatible protocol. Users can run queries against a Dolt database directly, or interact with it via the dolt command-line tool. Common commands include dolt init, dolt add, dolt commit, dolt status, dolt log, dolt diff, dolt branch, dolt merge, and dolt push/pull to synchronize with remote repositories.

Use cases: Dolt is intended for data collaboration, reproducible research, and auditing data pipelines. Its version history enables data provenance, rollback to previous states, and sharing specific data snapshots with others.

Limitations and scope: While Dolt provides SQL access and Git-like data versioning, it is not a drop-in replacement for all production relational databases. Performance characteristics depend on workload, dataset size, and how data is versioned. The project is open-source and maintained by Dolthub, with ongoing development and community contributions.