Monday.com was launched more than a decade ago with the goal of helping companies build a highly flexible set of business tools like CRM, marketing, operations and HR, built in a customized way that you simply can’t find off-the-shelf would. It turned out that companies not only liked this flexibility, but also pushed the boundaries so far that the underlying database technology was no longer able to continue to handle all use cases.
So the company began looking for a replacement. With countless database options available off the shelf, you might think that finding a suitable database would just be a matter of time and testing. But after reviewing several options and speaking to some experts, Monday concluded that something more than what was available was needed on the market.
One of the main themes was flexibility; Monday.com had no idea how its customers would turn the building blocks into applications. This meant that a schemaless database was required to handle whatever customers wanted to create. It was then that the company decided to create its own database, but with a twist: it did not create a single database that would handle all future functions. Instead, it would rely on some other databases to do specific tasks. The new solution was called MondayDB.
The new database has been in place since July, but as the company transitions to the new database, the old one still exists as another layer in the complexity of Monday.com’s architecture.
Startups need to be aware that no matter how careful they are in selecting technology, there is no way to predict how products will grow and evolve over time – and that is often impossible as they struggle to to bring a product to market. However, at some point, companies will have to pay off their technical debt by starting with an entirely new architecture, just as Monday.com had to do.
We sat down with Daniel Lereya, Chief Product and Technology Officer, to learn how the team decided to develop this solution and the challenges they faced in finding a database technology that meets these unique requirements.
Just another manic Monday
The process that led to the creation of a database has been underway for several years. In fact, in January 2021, the company began exploring ideas for a new database with a completely open mind. According to Lereya, customers value Monday.com because of the flexibility it offers, and the company needed a solution that can manage an adaptable approach.