The database is the event system.Subscriptions, triggers and durable change streams are part of the engine, so realtime is a query.
Live queries
Turn any SELECT into a subscription over WebSockets, with the same filters and permissions.
Full records or diffs
Receive the whole updated record, or only the changeset for high-frequency feeds.
Server-side events
DEFINE EVENT runs logic in the database when data changes: validation, fan-out, derived writes.
Changefeeds
An ordered, durable stream of mutations per table, replayable within the retention window.
Filtered subscriptions
Subscribe to one record, a filtered set, a whole table, or a graph-joined shape.
Permissions apply live
Row-level rules govern subscriptions too, so a client streams only what it may see.
LIVE QUERIES
Any query can become a subscription
Add LIVE to a SELECT and the same filter, permissions and shape stream to the client on every matching change.
Subscribe with the query you already wrote
LIVE SELECT * FROM document
WHERE account = $auth.account OR public = true;
-- Stream only what changed, not the whole record
LIVE SELECT DIFF FROM task
WHERE status != "closed";
-- Stop receiving updates
KILL "0189d1af-8f1c-7f3a-9d4e-2c1b6a5e0f77";
React on write, replay on demand
DEFINE TABLE product CHANGEFEED 7d;
SHOW CHANGES FOR TABLE product
SINCE time::now() - 1h LIMIT 100;
What the client receives
LIVE SELECT * FROM message
WHERE channel = $auth.channel;
-- The client receives each matching change as it commits:
-- { action: "CREATE", result: { id: message:9f2, text: "hi" } }
-- { action: "UPDATE", result: { id: message:9f2, text: "hey" } }
-- { action: "DELETE", result: { id: message:9f2 } }
Pushed from the engine that made the change
Subscribe once
One system
Consistent with the write
THE PLATFORM
Everything an application and its agents know. Five surfaces, one engine.
Database
Document, graph, vector, time-series and relational in one engine.
Agent Memory
What an agent learns, with its source and its time, in the same engine.
Cloud
Managed clusters in the regions you choose, scaled on demand.
Studio
Query, explore and design the schema from the browser.
MCP
Every model that speaks MCP reaches the database and the memory directly.
IN PRODUCTION
Trusted at scale. Samsung, Nvidia, Verizon, Tencent, and Walmart run on SurrealDB.
14,000+
Developers building on SurrealDB Cloud
4M+
Developers building on SurrealDB worldwide
FROM THE TEAMS
SurrealDB gives us a foundation where we can unify semantic search, knowledge graphs, and AI-driven decision making without stitching together multiple systems. Collapsing responsibility into SurrealDB has become our default engineering posture.
VP of Engineering, Later
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