Gartner’s 2021 Cloud Database MQ: Who Didn't Make It and Why

Research firm forecasts 'substantially reduced' vendor landscape by 2025

John Foley Mar 2

Gartner’s famous Magic Quadrant has long served as a proof point of a vendor’s relevance in its respective market. I get emails and press releases from companies that make the list. And crickets from those who don’t.

The research firm released its most recent MQ for Cloud Database Management Systems in December. Twenty companies made it into the quadrant, where they are categorized as Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries, and Niche Players.

What about the database companies that didn’t make it into the MQ? At the bottom of the report are “honorable mentions,” a kind of consolation prize. In the most recent MQ, the honorable mentions are Crate.io, DataStax, EDB, Micro Focus, MongoDB, Neo4j, Tencent, TigerGraph, Yellowbrick Data, and Yugabtye.

I would note that the Cloud Database Report has its own list of Top 20 cloud database vendors. There’s some overlap, and also differences, with Gartner’s MQ.

For example, DataStax, Neo4j, and Yugabyte are in the Cloud Database Report’s Top 20, but not the Gartner MQ. Conversely, the Gartner MQ includes Alibaba, Cloudera, Exasol, Huawei, and MarkLogic—none of which are among the Cloud Database Report Top 20.

I don’t want to get into a tit-for-tat with Gartner. They do a good job of explaining who made it into the MQ, who didn’t, and why. But following are a few of my observations on some of the key players not included in Gartner’s Cloud Database MQ for 2021.

No Magic Quadrant for These Honorable Mentions

• DataStax – Per Gartner, DataStax declined to participate in its MQ analysis because it was “still ramping up its cloud offering” during the evaluation process. It’s true that DataStax had a busy second half of 2021, with the announcement of a multi-region cloud capability, expanded API support, and a Cassandra-on-Kubernetes solution in VMware’s marketplace. I would bet that DataStax will be ready for Gartner next time.

• Micro Focus – Similarly, Micro Focus was not ready for prime time, as its managed service on AWS, called Vertica Accelerator, was still in beta at the time (though it’s now available). As it happens, I dropped Vertica/Micro Focus from the Cloud Database Report Top 20 in 2022 due to its unclear market position. So Micro Focus didn’t make either the Gartner MQ or the Cloud Database Report Top 20, though for different reasons.

• MongoDB – MongoDB is something of an enigma for Gartner, which it credits with “outstanding” market performance. However, MongoDB has not participated in Gartner’s evaluation process for five consecutive years, leading Gartner to concede that its information on MongoDB’s strategy and product roadmap is “significantly outdated.” I’m not surprised. My read on the situation is that MongoDB’s Comms & Marketing are in rebuild mode under a new CMO. Maybe they will be more forthcoming in the months ahead. (Disclaimer: I worked at MongoDB briefly in 2020.)

• Neo4j – Neo4j failed to satisfy Gartner’s “market momentum index,” which takes into account inquiries about a vendor from Gartner’s clients and the number of times a vendor is mentioned in peer reviews. Timing may have been a factor, as well. In January 2022, just one month after Gartner published its report, Neo4j announced that 2021 was a “banner year” of customer success, community engagement, and funding. The graph database company secured $390 million in funding during 2021, and its customers include BMW, CNN, PepsiCo, and Pfizer. I would be surprised if Neo4j doesn’t break into Gartner’s quadrant next time.

• Yellowbrick – Likewise, Yellowbrick failed to impress Gartner with its market momentum, despite having secured $75 million in funding a month prior to Gartner’s published report. In my assessment, Yellowbrick is on the cusp of being included among the leading cloud database vendors. However, its major hurdle is that Yellowbrick compares itself to Snowflake—a tough comparison.

• Yugabyte – Yugabyte also failed to impress vis-à-vis market momentum. That’s surprising because, when Yugabyte announced in October that it closed $188 million in Series C funding, it noted that more than 1,200 organizations had signed up for Yugabyte Cloud since it went into beta. Yugabyte Cloud went GA last September. I would expect Yugabyte to make the cut with Gartner on the next go around.

Fewer Database Vendors by 2025?

As you can see, a common theme is that new developments—cloud service availability, customer buzz, market momentum, etc.—influence the rankings. And the competitive landscape is in constant flux, with fast movers rising and laggards falling.

Which leads me to the observation that a once-a-year snapshot is too static in this fast-paced market.

The bottom line is that there will be winners and losers in the cloud database market. In fact, Gartner forecasts that “cloud preference for data management will substantially reduce the vendor landscape” by 2025. (Emphasis mine.)

That suggests there will be market consolidation over the next few years, and that database providers who lack a complete portfolio of cloud database services are the most vulnerable. In other words, the traditional database market is morphing into the cloud database market and that’s going to shake things up for years to come.

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