harperdb.com — Traffic, Worth & Safety

HarperDB is a distributed database that combines SQL and NoSQL capabilities with a built-in API server and application layer. Founded in 2017 in Denver, Colorado by Stephen Goldberg and Zach Zaro, HarperDB raised $11.5 million in Series A (2022). The database is designed for edge computing — running on devices from Raspberry Pi to cloud servers with automatic data replication between nodes. HarperDB targets IoT, edge computing, and applications requiring data at the network edge.

Based on our analysis, harperdb.com does not appear to use HTTPS and scores 0% on security headers. There is room for improvement in security configuration.

harperdb.com is missing 5 of 5 recommended security headers (Strict-Transport-Security, Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, X-XSS-Protection). This leaves visitors more exposed to browser-based attacks.

HarperDB supports HTTPS with TLS, role-based access controls, and JWT-based authentication. The clustering protocol encrypts data in transit between nodes. The platform provides user-level permissions controlling access to specific tables and operations. Self-hosted deployments inherit the operator's security posture. The built-in API server supports CORS configuration and request validation.

All values are estimates based on publicly available traffic data.

HarperDB targets edge computing and IoT use cases where traditional databases (PostgreSQL, MongoDB) are too heavy to run on edge devices. The database competes with SQLite (embedded, no replication), CouchDB (sync-capable, heavier), and FaunaDB (serverless, cloud-only). HarperDB's unique position is a full-featured distributed database that runs anywhere from a $35 Raspberry Pi to a cloud server. The challenge is market education — edge databases are a nascent category.

HarperDB runs on hardware as small as a Raspberry Pi while maintaining full database capabilities — enabling true edge computing where data is processed locally rather than sent to the cloud. The database supports both SQL and NoSQL queries on the same data simultaneously. HarperDB's built-in clustering replicates data between edge nodes and cloud automatically. The platform includes a built-in HTTP API server, eliminating the need for a separate application layer. The database achieved 100K+ operations/second on a single node.