Distributed database vendor PlanetScale has laid off staff and ended its free services in an effort to achieve sustainable profitability.
PlanetScale killed their hobby plane (and how to migrate away)
The company launched its database as a service in 2021, based on a distributed version of MySQL called Vitess, which is used by Slack, Airbnb and GitHub for its horizontal, globally scalable OLTP architecture.
To date, the distributed DB provider has raised $105 million in VC and seed funding, most recently with a $50 million Series C round led by private equity investor Kleiner Perkins in 2021.
In a statement sent to The Register, PlanetScale said it is cutting jobs, primarily in sales and marketing, and discontinuing the Hobby Plan, its free database service that will end on April 8.
