If you think about history’s greatest name changes, a few examples might come to mind.
Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali. Blue Ribbon Sports became Nike. And everyone knows it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople.
Name changes happen for a variety of reasons. When Prince turned his name into a symbol, he was seeking independence from his record label. Google became Alphabet to reflect a broadened scope and scale. But the majority of name changes are about better representing who and what you are.
That’s certainly true for SingleStore.
Many people don’t realize we’re the artists formerly known as MemSQL. They don’t make the connection between the company that pioneered several key areas of database technology in the early 2010s and today’s blazing-fast database – the one that’s expanding the limits of the possible in real-time analytics and AI apps.
But we are one and the same. We are MemSQL, and MemSQL is us.
At the time of our founding in 2011 right up to the present day, we’ve had one guiding purpose: to bring order to complexity in the world of databases. We’ve done that by offering the ability to handle high-speed transactional and analytical workloads in one place, by continuously improving the developer experience and by striving for ever-greater simplicity.
When MemSQL was born, the AI revolution was still a long way off, but our founders could see it coming. A deeper need was emerging in the developer community; our founders knew the data landscape was much too complex, that data volumes would only increase and that demand for insights would only speed up.
They knew the world needed a database that could handle transactional and analytical workloads all at once, without having to duplicate data or move it around. And they saw an opening for a solution that made it much easier for organizations to cope with large, fast-moving data.
MemSQL was so named because it was an in-memory, transactional database. Over time, we evolved to become memory-first, and to allow for additional data types. When we added a single store architecture for both row-based and columnar-based storage, our engineers gave it the internal nickname, “singlestore.”
In 2020, we formally changed our name to reflect what we’ve always sought to be: a single store for ALL data. It’s a perfect expression of what we’re all about. SingleStore ends the need to piece together disjointed data architectures that don’t play well together, obliterating any impediments that slow your flow.
From our roots as MemSQL to now, SingleStore has always been natively engineered for speed, scale and simplicity. Right from the start, we built in the features that would make us the easiest car to drive for both real-time analytics and AI applications. As an in-memory database with a distributed architecture and HTAP capabilities, we offer several characteristics that make life easier for developers: things like ANSI SQL compliance, real-time data ingestion, speedy code compilation and integration with tools like Kafka, Spark and other cloud-native technologies.
With every year, we’ve perfected our platform to make it faster, simpler and easier to use. To our inherent strengths of transacting and analyzing, we added vector and full-text search. We introduced patented Universal Storage and offered greater speed at scale, proving that lightning-fast databases could also be affordable. And when our customers asked for multi-model workloads, we delivered.
And the pace of innovation is only increasing. Recent releases have included ground-breaking features like, hybrid search capabilities (we added vectors back in 2017), compatibility with MongoDB® queries and APIs, and on-demand platform services with GPUs/ CPUs. To enable seamless connectivity with a broader range of enterprise and SaaS applications, we acquired BryteFlow and created SingleConnect for real-time data ingestion.
To help you build faster, more powerful apps, we announced partnerships with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Agile Platform and integrations with Snowflake and Apache Iceberg. Along the way, we earned a 2025 TrustRadius Buyer’s Choice Award, proof we’re delivering on our promise to our customers.
So that’s the story of how and why MemSQL became SingleStore. We think it’s one of the better name changes around, because it perfectly encapsulates what we offer our customers: a single store for every data need, and the only database you’ll ever need.
We’re proud of our roots and the way our MemSQL era established us as a leader in modern database technology. So the next time you hear someone mention our former name, make sure they know that these days, we go by “SingleStore.”
