Launch HN: Ardent (YC P26) – Postgres sandboxes in seconds with zero migration
Summary
Ardent is a YC-backed startup that provides Postgres database sandboxes in seconds with zero migration, allowing coding agents to test code on production-like data without risk.
Hey HN! We’re Vikram and Evan from Ardent (<a href="https://tryardent.com">https://tryardent.com</a>). We're building database sandboxes for you and your coding agents.<p>In the last two years coding agents have gotten dramatically more capable at handling complex engineering tasks. But without access to a realistic sandbox at the DB layer for testing, they ship garbage that can take down production databases. I spent over a year building an AI Data Engineer that failed for this exact reason. Evan spent the last 12 years in data engineering and hit this wall building agents at his last company.<p>Ardent was built to make it possible for coding agents to get near instant access to production-like sandboxes so they can test their work. To do this we write a replication stream out of the target DB, scaling with kafka onto a read replica with copy on write enabled and autoscaling compute (we currently prefer neon as a primary branching engine due to their implementation of these properties).<p>Our replication stream uses logical replication + ddl triggers to enable usage on any hosted postgres DB since most platforms do not allow physical replication which is traditionally used for creating replicas.<p>This provides a few primary benefits:<p>1. Does not require a platform migration to a DB provider like neon, allowing strong separation of production and development concerns.
2. Minimal impact on the production database while allowing clones to spin up in <6s, even at TB scale with copy-on-write<p>Security matters a lot with cloning production so we run a proxy layer to generate custom postgres URLs and route all connections to allow more granular access control to clones, prevent credential leak, and follow a split plane architecture to allow full data residency on your cloud through BYOC.<p>We also support anonymization through the ability to register SQL that runs on branches before they are returned. This has been used for PII redaction and branch modification.<p>Our goal is to make every data infrastructure platform “cloneable” in one place so agents can fully test the impact of their changes on production like data environments without risk.<p>Here's a demo of it: <a href="https://youtu.be/5S1kwPtiRU0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/5S1kwPtiRU0</a><p>We’d love to understand how you work with coding agents on the DB and if you try Ardent (it's free to get started) what worked, what broke and what’s missing.
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# Ardent — Database branching for coding agents
Source: [https://www.tryardent.com/](https://www.tryardent.com/)
## Use coding agents on real data with no risk
Create copies of any Postgres database in under 6 seconds so coding agents can verify their code works in prod
Stop breakages
### Validate code before it reaches production
Let Coding agents test their database code on a 1:1 copy of your production postgres
[Book a Demo](https://cal.com/vikram-chennai/company-meet)
Zero blast radius
### Test with zero risk to production
Each clone is isolated at both the compute and storage level\. Clones never impact production\. Ever
[Book a Demo](https://cal.com/vikram-chennai/company-meet)
Speed at scale
### Cloning that never slows down even at terabyte scale
Clones load in 6s, scale to 0, autoscale compute and do not duplicate storage\. Zero management needed
[Book a Demo](https://cal.com/vikram-chennai/company-meet)
Data cleaning
Let agents clean, deduplicate and standardize data on an exact copy of production
Features
## Built to be infinitely scalable and fast
Cloning Speed
30,960X faster cloning per TB
Extreme storage efficiency
Only pay for changes made
TraditionalArdent0 TB12\.52537\.550 TB01020304050ClonesStorage
Compute that scales with agent workloads
No overprovisioning\. Automatic scale to 0
Always\-on capacity0%25%50%75%100%0h6h12h18h24hTimeCompute
Comparison
## Why AI native data teams use Ardent
Clone Creation
Hours / Days
<6s
Storage
Entire DB per clone
Only Changes made
Compute
Always on
What you use
Database management
Manual resizing
Autoscale
Git style team collaboration
#### Need a custom plan?
We can tailor workflows, limits, and infrastructure to fit your team's needs\.
[Talk to the founder](https://cal.com/vikram-chennai/company-meet)
Branching on your DB without migration
## Designed for the providers you already use
#### Supabase
Support for auth, extensions and more to replicate your supabase instance 1:1
#### AWS RDS
Connect your RDS Postgres instances with zero config changes\. Branch directly against your production data
#### Planetscale
Branch with full compatibility across planetscale specific extensions and configurations
Customer Impact
## Built for teams moving fast with AI at production scale
#### “We spent hours trying to test AI database code through inaccurate seed files\.Ardent lets us and our agents test in seconds with zero drift from production\.”
Akshendra Garg
CTO Zennagents
What the best say
## Trusted by the best in Data
“I think AI will disrupt data engineering in a significant way\. I'm investing in Ardent to accelerate that disruption\!”
Zach Wilson
Founder of Dataexpert\.io
“Ardent is a fundamental complete shift in how agents and developers work with databases\. It's as critical as git was for code”
Abhay Singh
Head of Data at Chevron
“Ardent let us move as fast as agents write code\. We no longer worry about our agents working on the database layer\.”
Pryce Yebesi
CEO at Openledger
## Ship fast and don't break things
Make sure coding agents never break your DB\.
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