Today we are announcing that mLab is being acquired by MongoDB, Inc.

mLab's Story

When we launched mLab in 2011 we were one of the first companies to offer a Database-as-a-Service.

The value proposition to developers was simple and powerful. Instead of self-hosting and managing what is arguably the most complex and difficult-to-manage layer of the application stack (the database), developers could use a cloud service for this critical piece of infrastructure. By doing so, developers could focus on their applications because the provisioning, scaling, backup, monitoring, and management of their databases was taken care of.

As interesting as the delivery model was the database itself. Our service was based on an exciting new NoSQL database called MongoDB because we believed MongoDB represented the natural successor to the traditional relational database as a general-purpose data store for software applications -- a prediction which has been playing out.

Since 2011 we have provided our users with a rock-solid DBaaS platform they can depend on and set an industry standard for technical support in the developer infrastructure space. Today we are proud to be nearing one million hosted databases on the mLab platform across our free and paid tiers.

Over the years, mLab and MongoDB have explored ways to work more closely together. As we have gotten to know each other, we have found we share a similar vision and both believe in an engineering culture based on intellectual honesty, hard work, and respect. We were excited by the idea of working together, as part of one team.

Importantly, I want to recognize the mLab team and express how lucky I feel to work with such an amazing group of individuals. I have never worked with colleagues that care more about their customers' success, and I could not be more proud of this talented team of 30 who built the beloved service that has supported so many developers worldwide. I am pleased to report that all mLab employees have been invited to join MongoDB full-time.

What This Means For You, Our Customer

As a customer of mLab you know that we care deeply about your success. You have our commitment that the migration to MongoDB Atlas will be a smooth experience, and that you will continue to receive excellent service.

We will be providing you with specific details of the migration plan in forthcoming updates. In the meantime, here is what you should know:

You will be given plenty of time to migrate, and nothing will be required of you for at least 4 months. We expect to have all customers migrated to Atlas within the next 12 months.

Once migrated, your Atlas database will be hosted on similar hardware and cost the same or less than your original plan on mLab.

We will provide tools that allow you to migrate with either minimal downtime or no downtime to your application.

All of this applies to users with mLab Heroku add-ons as well.

Thank You

Finally, we want to thank you, our customer, for using mLab and MongoDB to power your application. You have contributed to making MongoDB the world's most popular modern database, and the database developers want to work with most.

We believe MongoDB represents a sea change in how application developers work with data. As MongoDB establishes itself as an industry standard, now is the right time to bring together these two companies to accelerate the pace of innovation for the community of developers that run MongoDB in the cloud.

If you have any questions or concerns please email our team at support@mlab.com.

Will Shulman, CEO mLab