At MongoDB we believe in fair competition, open collaboration, and innovation that empowers developers. Our work has popularized the document database and enabled millions of developers to build modern, scalable applications that power some of the world’s leading companies. We welcome competition that drives progress and expands developer choice.
But that only works when everyone plays fair, which, unfortunately, isn’t always the case.
On May 16th, we asked FerretDB to stop engaging in unfair business practices that harm both MongoDB and the broader developer community. We believe that FerretDB has crossed two distinct lines:
FerretDB misleads and deceives developers by falsely claiming that its product is a “replacement” for MongoDB “in every possible way1.” FerretDB compounds the issue by using MongoDB’s name and branding in ways that mislead developers and falsely suggest affiliation and equivalence, which is untrue.
FerretDB has infringed upon MongoDB’s patents. Re-implementing MongoDB commands and functionality relies on unauthorized misappropriation of MongoDB’s intellectual property without permission or investment. Specifically, FerretDB is infringing multiple MongoDB patents that cover how aggregation pipelines are processed and optimized, and other MongoDB functionality that increases the reliability of write operations.
Ferret is trying to hide behind being an open source alternative, but at the end of the day, this isn’t about open source, it’s about imitation, theft, and misappropriation masquerading as compatibility. FerretDB selectively claims compatibility to deceptively attract developers, while omitting key features and limiting deployment when it suits its purposes2. In fact, FerretDB’s CEO has acknowledged the confusion developers face when evaluating their product3—and rather than clarifying, FerretDB leans into that ambiguity, seeking to exploit it at MongoDB’s expense.
Rather than investing in new ideas, FerretDB has attempted to capitalize on over 15 years of MongoDB’s research and development— copying core innovations, misusing our name, and misrepresenting their product to developers as a drop-in replacement for MongoDB. Developers deserve better. They deserve clarity, transparency, and truly innovative tools they can rely on.
MongoDB takes no pleasure in raising these concerns. We remain committed to open development principles and welcome healthy competition. While we had sincerely hoped FerretDB would choose to compete fairly, their continued action has left us no choice but to protect our reputation and intellectual property through legal action.
2 For example: FerretDB positions itself as an open-source alternative to MongoDB, offering wire protocol compatibility to support MongoDB drivers and tools on a PostgreSQL backend. However, FerretDB acknowledges it does not offer full feature parity and advises developers to verify compatibility before migrating (Migration Guide).
3 https://www.contributor.fyi/ferretdb
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