What if creating a database would be as cheap as creating a Hashmap?
An immutable in-memory database and Datalog query engine in Clojure and ClojureScript.
DataScript is meant to run inside the browser. It is cheap to create, quick to query and ephemeral. You create a database on page load, put some data in it, track changes, do queries and forget about it when the user closes the page.
DataScript databases are immutable and based on persistent data structures. In fact, they’re more like data structures than databases (think Hashmap). Unlike querying a real SQL DB, when you query DataScript, it all comes down to a Hashmap lookup. Or series of lookups. Or array iteration. There’s no particular overhead to it. You put a little data in it, it’s fast. You put in a lot of data, well, at least it has indexes. That should do better than you filtering an array by hand anyway. The thing is really lightweight.
The intention with DataScript is to be a basic building block in client-side applications that needs to track a lot of state during their lifetime. There’s a lot of benefits:
- Central, uniform approach to manage all application state. Clients working with state become decoupled and independent: rendering, server sync, undo/redo do not interfere with each other.
- Immutability simplifies things even in a single-threaded browser environment. Keep track of app state evolution, rewind to any point in time, always render consistent state, sync in background without locking anybody.
- Datalog query engine to answer non-trivial questions about current app state.
- Structured format to track data coming in and out of DB. Datalog queries can be run against it too.
Latest version 
;; lein
[datascript "1.7.8"]
;; deps.edn
datascript/datascript {:mvn/version "1.7.8"}
Important! If you are using shadow-cljs, add
:compiler-options {:externs ["datascript/externs.js"]}
to your build (see #432 #298 #216)
Resources
Support:
- Join #datascript on Clojurians Slack (grab invite here)
Books:
- Learning ClojureScript has a chapter on DataScript
Docs:
- API Docs
- docs/queries.md
- docs/tuples.md
- docs/storage.md
- Getting started
- Tutorials
- Tips & tricks
- Triple Stores overview
- Quick tutorial into Datalog
Posts:
- How DataScript fits into the current webdev ecosystem
- DataScript internals explained
- Sketch of client/server reactive architecture
Talks:
- “Frontend with Joy” talk (FPConf, August 2015): video in Russian
- “Programming Web UI with Database in a Browser” talk (PolyConf, July 2015): slides, video
- “DataScript for Web Development” talk (Clojure eXchange, Dec 2014): slides, video
- “Building ToDo list with DataScript” webinar (ClojureScript NYC, Dec 2014): video, app
- DataScript hangout (May 2014, in Russian): video
Projects using DataScript:
- Roam Research, a note-taking graph database
- LogSeq, a local-first, non-linear, outliner notebook
- Athens Research, a tool for networked thought
- Hulunote, a tool for networked thought
- Cognician, coaching platform
- LightMesh, datacenter management
- PartsBox, electronic parts management
- I am Fy, accessories e-shop
- Under Whose Command?, an interactive report by Security Force Monitor
- gluino.io, an AI with swagger
- Pinfigurator, a microcontroller search tool
- Precursor, collaborative prototyping tool
- Acha-acha, GitHub achievements
- Showkr, flickr gallery viewer (sources)
- Zetawar, turn-based tactical strategy game
- Lemmings, incubator focused on art & artificial intelligence
Related projects:
- DataScript-Transit, transit serialization for database and datoms
- DataScript SQL Storages, durable storage implementations for popular SQL databases
- Posh, lib that lets you use a single DataScript db to store Reagent app state
- re-posh, use re-frame with DataScript storage
- DataScript-mori, DataScript & Mori wrapper for use from JS
- DatSync, Datomic ↔︎ DataScript syncing/replication utilities
- Intension, lib to convert associative structures to in-memory databases for querying them
- Datamaps, lib designed to leverage datalog queries to query arbitrary maps.
Demo applications:
- Localisation Demo with Om Next
- ToDo, task manager demo app (persistence via localStorage and transit, filtering, undo/redo): sources, live
- CatChat, chat demo app: sources, code walkthrough, live
- clj-crud, demo CRUD app: sources, blog post
- OmNext TodoMVC
Usage examples
For more examples, see our acceptance test suite.
(require '[datascript.core :as d])
;; Implicit join, multi-valued attribute
(let [schema {:aka {:db/cardinality :db.cardinality/many}}
conn (d/create-conn schema)]
(d/transact! conn [ { :db/id -1
:name "Maksim"
:age 45
:aka ["Max Otto von Stierlitz", "Jack Ryan"] } ])
(d/q '[ :find ?n ?a
:where [?e :aka "Max Otto von Stierlitz"]
[?e :name ?n]
[?e :age ?a] ]
@conn))
;; => #{ ["Maksim" 45] }
;; Destructuring, function call, predicate call, query over collection
(d/q '[ :find ?k ?x
:in [[?k [?min ?max]] ...] ?range
:where [(?range ?min ?max) [?x ...]]
[(even? ?x)] ]
{ :a [1 7], :b [2 4] }
range)
;; => #{ [:a 2] [:a 4] [:a 6] [:b 2] }
;; Recursive rule
(d/q '[ :find ?u1 ?u2
:in $ %
:where (follows ?u1 ?u2) ]
[ [1 :follows 2]
[2 :follows 3]
[3 :follows 4] ]
'[ [(follows ?e1 ?e2)
[?e1 :follows ?e2]]
[(follows ?e1 ?e2)
[?e1 :follows ?t]
(follows ?t ?e2)] ])
;; => #{ [1 2] [1 3] [1 4]
;; [2 3] [2 4]
;; [3 4] }
;; Aggregates
(d/q '[ :find ?color (max ?amount ?x) (min ?amount ?x)
:in [[?color ?x]] ?amount ]
[[:red 10] [:red 20] [:red 30] [:red 40] [:red 50]
[:blue 7] [:blue 8]]
3)
;; => [[:red [30 40 50] [10 20 30]]
;; [:blue [7 8] [7 8]]]
Using from vanilla JS
DataScript can be used from any JS engine without additional dependencies:
<script src="https://github.com/tonsky/datascript/releases/download/1.7.8/datascript-1.7.8.min.js"></script>
or as a CommonJS module (npm page):
npm install datascript
var ds = require('datascript');
or as a RequireJS module:
require(['datascript'], function(ds) { ... });
Queries:
- Query and rules should be EDN passed as strings
- Results of
q are returned as regular JS arrays
Entities:
- Entities returned by
entity call are lazy as in Clojure
- Use
e.get("prop"), e.get(":db/id"), e.db to access entity properties
- Entities implement ECMAScript 6 Map interface (has/get/keys/...)
Transactions:
- Use strings such as
":db/id", ":db/add", etc. instead of db-namespaced keywords
- Use regular JS arrays and objects to pass data to
transact and db_with
Transaction reports:
report.tempids has string keys ("-1" for entity tempid -1), use resolve_tempid to set up a correspondence
Check out test/js/tests.js for usage examples.
Project status
Stable. Most of the features done, expecting non-breaking API additions and performance optimizations. No docs at the moment, use examples & Datomic documentation.
The following features are supported:
- Database as a value: each DB is an immutable value. New DBs are created on top of old ones, but old ones stay perfectly valid too
- Triple store model
- EAVT, AEVT and AVET indexes
- Multi-valued attributes via
:db/cardinality :db.cardinality/many
- Lazy entities and
:db/valueType :db.type/ref auto-expansion
- Database “mutations” via
transact!
- Callback-based analogue to txReportQueue via
listen!
- Direct index lookup and iteration via
datoms and seek-datoms
- Filtered databases via
filter
- Lookup refs
- Unique constraints, upsert
- Pull API (thx David Thomas Hume)
Query engine features:
- Implicit joins
- Query over DB or regular collections
- Parameterized queries via
:in clause
- Tuple, collection, relation binding forms in
:in clause
- Query over multiple DB/collections
- Predicates and user functions in query
- Negation and disjunction
- Rules, recursive rules
- Aggregates
- Find specifications
Interface differences:
- Conn is just an atom storing last DB value, use
@conn instead of (d/db conn)
- Instead of
#db/id[:db.part/user -100] just use -100 in place of :db/id or entity id
- Transactor functions can be called as
[:db.fn/call f args] where f is a function reference and will take db as first argument (thx @thegeez)
- In ClojureScript, custom query functions and aggregates should be passed as source instead of being referenced by symbol (due to lack of
resolve in CLJS)
- Custom aggregate functions are called via aggregate keyword:
:find (aggregate ?myfn ?e) :in $ ?myfn
- Additional
:db.fn/retractAttribute shortcut
- Transactions are not annotated by default with
:db/txInstant
- When “transaction function” is called, the db that this function receive is a “partial db” relative to it's position in transaction.
Differences from Datomic
- DataScript is built totally from scratch and is not related by any means to the popular Clojure database Datomic
- Runs in a browser and/or in a JVM
- Simplified schema, not queryable
- Attributes do not have to be declared in advance. Put them to schema only when you need special behaviour from them
- Any type can be used for values
- No
:db/ident for attributes, keywords are literally attribute values, no integer id behind them
- No schema migrations
- No full-text search, no partitions
Aimed at interactive, long-living browser applications, DataScript DBs operate in constant space. If you do not add new entities, just update existing ones, or clean up database from time to time, memory consumption will be limited. This is unlike Datomic which keeps history of all changes, thus grows monotonically. DataScript does not track history by default, but you can do it via your own code if needed.
Some of the features are omitted intentionally. Different apps have different needs in storing/transfering/keeping track of DB state. DataScript is a foundation to build exactly the right storage solution for your needs without selling too much “vision”.
License
Copyright © 2014–2025 Nikita Prokopov
Licensed under Eclipse Public License (see LICENSE).
