What Harper does

Harper (formerly HarperDB Inc.) is a Denver-based, privately held open-source technology company that operates a unified Node.js runtime consolidating database (NoSQL, vector, and blob storage), cache, messaging (MQTT, WebSocket, SSE), and application logic into a single multi-threaded in-memory process replicated across multi-region clusters. Founded in 2017 and rebranded in March 2025, the company evolved from a high-performance database vendor into a full-stack application delivery platform; its own materials state that the platform powers nearly 2% of global e-commerce purchases and delivers sub-millisecond data retrieval. The architectural premise is the elimination of distributed-system complexity by collapsing what is normally four or five separate infrastructure tiers into one process, with RocksDB as a native storage engine and LMDB as an alternative.

The company distributes a free Apache 2.0 core via npm, Docker, and Red Hat OpenShift, monetizes a source-available Harper Pro tier (replication, clustering, certificate management) via quote-based enterprise subscriptions, and runs Harper Fabric as a managed cloud deployment platform with block pricing. A growing AI stack overlays the runtime: a provider-agnostic Models API supporting OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, and Ollama; a built-in agentic loop with budget controls; native Model Context Protocol server support; Harper Cortex as a shared agent memory layer; and a Harper Agent CLI assistant. Go-to-market combines product-led growth on the open-source core with enterprise field sales and co-selling partnerships with Verizon/AWS, Akamai, StackPath, and DigitalOcean, alongside OpenJS Foundation Silver Membership and community channels on Discord, GitHub, X, LinkedIn, and Bluesky.

Harper serves enterprise customers including Ralph Lauren, Macy's, StubHub, Bass Pro Shop, Ford, IBM, Verizon, HP, Western Union, Lufthansa, Ubisoft, Sportradar, and Lottomatica, with e-commerce as its primary vertical. The company received a growth investment from Serent Capital in June 2024, expanded its leadership with former Couchbase CEO Bob Wiederhold as Executive Chairman and new EVPs of Sales and Marketing, and has been recognized by Gartner (Hype Cycle for Digital Commerce 2026 Sample Vendor), IDC (Innovator for Edge Inference Delivery 2024), Data Breakthrough Awards (Open Source Data Platform of the Year and In-Memory Solution of the Year, 2026), HackerNoon (Startup of the Year 2023), and multiple Built In Best Places to Work awards across 2024–2026.

Name

Harper

Legal name

HarperDB Inc.

Website

https://harper.fast

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Denver-based Harper operates an open-source Node.js runtime that consolidates database, cache, messaging, and application logic into a single in-memory process, serving enterprise e-commerce and AI-agent workloads through an Apache 2.0 core and a Harper Pro commercial tier.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Application Infrastructure Platform

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

Cloud Data Warehouses (HDAEABAA)

akta.pro secondary industry

Integration & Messaging Platforms (API Gateway, Queues, Event Bus) (HDABAAAG)

Keywords

• Unified runtime platform
• In-memory database
• Application delivery platform
• Edge computing software
• Agentic AI infrastructure

Headquarters

HQ city

Denver

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Harper Pro: Enterprise-grade source-available offering with advanced features beyond the open-source Apache 2.0 core, targeting organizations requiring enterprise support and extended capabilities
2. Open Source Core (Apache 2.0): Free open-source core product enabling broad adoption and community growth, serving as a freemium entry point

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion4 records

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

Harper (formerly HarperDB) is an open-source unified runtime platform that combines database (NoSQL, vector, blob storage), cache, messaging (MQTT, WebSocket, SSE), and application logic into a single multi-threaded process replicated across multi-region clusters. The platform targets developers and enterprises building full-stack applications, AI agents, and real-time streaming systems, offering sub-millisecond response times, native agentic AI capabilities (Models API, MCP server, semantic caching), and optional commercial extensions (Harper Pro, Harper Fabric managed cloud).

Product overview

Harper is a unified application platform consisting of the open-source Harper core runtime (Apache 2.0) combined with optional commercial extensions. The platform unifies database (NoSQL, vector, blob storage), cache, messaging (MQTT, WebSocket, SSE), and application logic into a single multi-threaded process. Harper Fabric provides managed cloud deployment while Harper Pro adds source-available enterprise features (replication, clustering, certificate management) for self-hosted distributed deployments. AI capabilities are delivered through the Models API (provider-agnostic LLM interface supporting OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, Ollama), Harper Agent (CLI-based AI assistant), Harper Cortex (shared memory layer with 23x recall capacity), and native MCP server support (auto-generating secure tools from application schemas). Performance add-ons include Page Cache (sub-second product pages), Distributed Cache (federated API acceleration), and Connected Cache (managed cache service). The platform also maintains an ecosystem of open-source applications and plugins including Apollo GraphQL Gateway, Grafana Datasource, OAuth modules, Near Store Agent reference pattern, and Product Recommendations Engine.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Harper Core Platform Open-source unified runtime platform licensed under Apache 2.0 that combines NoSQL, vector, and blob storage database capabilities, in-memory cache, real-time messaging (MQTT, WebSocket, SSE), and Node.js application logic into a single multi-threaded process. Powers nearly 2% of global e-commerce purchases with sub-millisecond response times.
• Harper Pro Source-available commercial license for enterprise-grade Harper deployments, adding replication, clustering, and certificate management on top of the open-source Harper platform to enable self-hosted distributed deployments for production use.
• Harper Fabric Managed cloud deployment platform providing unified orchestration, dynamic scaling, and block-based pricing for globally distributed low-latency applications. Enables deploy-once deployment that runs the same API across regions with replication, routing, and failover handled by the platform.
• Harper Agent CLI-based AI assistant that helps with Harper application creation and management, running with operator-level access for deploying components, reading logs, diagnosing issues, and adjusting configuration with explicit approval for destructive operations.
• Harper Models API Provider-agnostic LLM interface available in Harper resource handlers supporting OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, and Ollama with a single generate/embed interface and the ability to switch providers via configuration change rather than code change.
• Harper Cortex Open-source shared memory layer for AI tools and agents that unifies context across AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, and Copilot while storing structured knowledge in a vector index on Harper, providing 23x more recall capacity than alternatives.
• Harper MCP Server Open-source Model Context Protocol server implementation exposing HarperDB data as structured Resources accessible via standardized JSON-RPC calls, with native MCP support auto-generating secure tools from application schemas and supporting stdio and Streamable HTTP transports.
• Page Cache Performance add-on module that delivers sub-second product pages by accepting existing SSR or static frameworks, pre-rendering where beneficial, and injecting dynamic attributes (price, availability, promos, personalization) at the last responsible moment, achieving approximately 600ms load time for 95% of users.
• Connected Cache Managed distributed cache service built on dedicated distributed cloud infrastructure, functioning as intermediary layer between CDNs and origin servers with passive caching (up to 99% origin offload) and active caching (up to 100% origin offload) using dynamic cache keys from POST body, GraphQL, URL parameters, and JWT payloads.
• rocksdb-js Modern Node.js binding for RocksDB offering full transaction support, lazy range queries, and TypeScript API, built for performance and scalability enabling reliable write-heavy workloads, real-time replication, and high-concurrency applications.

Quantifiable outcome

• 30-85% reduction in LLM calls
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers13 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration12 records

AI capability10 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Verizon/AWScoreGTM or Marketing PartnerCo-selling partnership with Verizon and Amazon Web Services to expand enterprise market reach and joint go-to-market activities.
• AkamaicoreGTM or Marketing PartnerCo-selling partnership with Akamai for edge computing and content delivery integration.
• StackPathcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerStrategic partnership with StackPath for edge computing and delivery solutions.
• Red HatcoreTechnology or IntegrationHarper is Red Hat OpenShift certified, enabling enterprise Kubernetes deployments on Red Hat's platform.
• DigitalOceanminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorDigitalOcean marketplace listing for easy Harper deployment on DigitalOcean infrastructure.
• OpenJS FoundationminorOthersSilver Member of the OpenJS Foundation, supporting open-source JavaScript ecosystem.
• 5G OI LabminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with 5G OI Lab for edge computing and 5G technology collaboration.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Redis: Redis is the leading in-memory data store used for caching, messaging, and increasingly as a primary database. Like Harper, it competes on sub-millisecond latency and powers high-traffic web and AI applications, and is one of the most direct substitutes for Harper's cache and data layer.
• Couchbase: Couchbase is a distributed NoSQL cloud database with in-memory performance and edge capabilities. Harper and Couchbase compete for the same enterprise database workloads, and the connection is particularly close given that Couchbase's former CEO Bob Wiederhold now serves as Harper's Executive Chairman.
• SingleStore: SingleStore is a unified real-time database that combines transactional and analytical workloads in a single engine. Its positioning around HTAP and real-time analytics overlaps directly with Harper's unified runtime and target use cases in high-traffic applications.
• Aerospike: Aerospike is a real-time NoSQL database optimized for high-throughput, low-latency workloads at scale. It targets similar high-traffic e-commerce, ad-tech, and gaming use cases where Harper's sub-millisecond in-memory performance is a key selling point.

Broad incumbents

• MongoDB: MongoDB is the largest document-oriented NoSQL database provider with Atlas managed cloud offering. It competes with Harper for application data workloads and has vastly greater enterprise penetration, capital, and developer mindshare, but does not natively fuse cache, messaging, and application logic in the same way Harper does.
• Cloudflare Workers / D1: Cloudflare's edge platform combines Workers (serverless compute), D1 (serverless SQL), KV, R2, and Queues into an integrated edge runtime. It competes with Harper on unified application deployment across regions and is a more established incumbent with substantially greater scale and capital.

Emerging players

• Supabase: Supabase is an open-source backend-as-a-service platform built on Postgres that bundles database, auth, storage, and realtime APIs. It targets the same developer-first, full-stack application use cases Harper pursues with its unified runtime and open-source distribution.
• DragonflyDB: DragonflyDB is a modern in-memory data store compatible with Redis/Memcached APIs that delivers higher throughput per node. It is a direct substitute for Harper's caching and in-memory data layer and benefits from similar open-source distribution dynamics.
• Fauna: Fauna is a distributed document-relational database with a serverless delivery model that combines transactional consistency and global scale. It targets similar developer-first application use cases and competes for the same low-latency, globally distributed workloads.

Others

• Vercel: Vercel is a frontend cloud platform for deploying JavaScript/Node.js applications with edge functions and integrated data services. It is comparable to Harper Fabric in providing managed deployment and global low-latency application delivery, though focused on the frontend/SSR layer rather than a unified data runtime.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/harper_fast
• GitHubgithub.com/Harperfast
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/harperfast

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles10 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds4 records

Investors4 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Harper