Realm

Realm emerged in 2014 from the Y Combinator accelerator program, founded by Alexander Stigsen and Bjarne Christiansen. The company originated in Copenhagen, Denmark, with the goal of creating a superior mobile database, one designed specifically for the demands of real-time, offline-first applications. Stigsen, who served as CEO, and Christiansen, the CTO, brought a wealth of experience from their time at Nokia, where they worked on low-level components for mobile operating systems. This deep background in mobile infrastructure directly informed their approach to building a database that was not just a scaled-down version of a server database but a new solution built from the ground up for mobile developers.

Realm introduced a mobile database designed to be a direct replacement for SQLite, offering developers a more powerful, faster, and easier-to-use object database for their applications on both iOS and Android. The core of its business centered on providing a tool that simplifies data management for developers, enabling features like offline functionality and real-time data synchronization with minimal effort. The business model operated on an open-source core, with a professional and enterprise edition offering advanced features such as the Realm Object Server, which facilitated seamless data synchronization between devices and the cloud. This catered to a wide range of clients, from individual developers and small startups to large enterprise customers building complex, data-intensive mobile applications.

The company's journey reached a significant milestone in 2019 when it was acquired by MongoDB, the prominent NoSQL database provider. Following the acquisition, Realm's technology was integrated into the MongoDB ecosystem, eventually becoming MongoDB Realm. This integration expanded its capabilities, pairing the efficient mobile database with MongoDB's robust backend services, including serverless functions (MongoDB Stitch) and a connection to the main MongoDB Atlas database. This strategic move positioned Realm as the go-to mobile database for the extensive MongoDB developer community. However, in a subsequent strategic shift, support for the legacy Atlas Device SDKs (formerly Realm) is scheduled to end on September 30, 2025, as MongoDB transitions its mobile strategy.

Keywords: mobile database, object database, data synchronization, offline-first, mobile development, open source, database-as-a-service, iOS development, Android development, MongoDB