{
  "id": 5558825,
  "title": "Ok, but Does It Scale?",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/04/ok-but-does-it-scale",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-04T12:42:08.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Hacker News",
    "slug": "hacker-news",
    "url": "https://spacetimedb.com/blog/how-does-spacetime-scale"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The question that frequently arises about Spacetime is whether it scales. At first glance, this seems like a simple inquiry, but the concept of scalability is indeed complex and fraught with details. To gain a better understanding of scalability from the outset, let's delve into the general concept first, followed by an exploration of how Spacetime scales.\n\nWhen considering scalability in general, there are three dimensions to take into account: compute, storage, and networking. Scaling storage horizontally is relatively easy and is set to launch on October 31st, 2026. However, it's important to note that not all networking and computation can be scaled horizontally. Many databases that claim general horizontal scalability often incur significant overhead per transaction and struggle when faced with competing transactions. Spacetime, on the other hand, ensures high performance even under contention and offers tools to simplify scaling parallelizable OLTP workloads.\n\nNow, it's worth mentioning that when people talk about \"scalability,\" they often mean horizontal scalability. Vertical scalability refers to doing more with a single computer, while horizontal scalability is about doing more with multiple computers. Horizontal scalability implies that a system can grow its capacity by adding more machines. While it might seem appealing to be able to handle a billion requests, infinite data, or an ever-growing number of users without rewriting the software, this definition encompasses only one aspect of scalability.\n\nIn essence, scalability is about being able to do more with more computers. If doubling the number of computers allows a system to perform roughly twice as much work, then the computation is said to scale horizontally. The concept of doing more with more computers is intuitively appealing, as a single computer has inherent limitations in terms of size and speed. However, there's no theoretical limit to the number of computers one can purchase, making horizontal scalability an appealing proposition.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}