Frequently asked questions

AthenaDB is a secure, AI-native database that runs natively on Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. It searches by keyword, meaning, connections, and time together, keeps everything encrypted and yours, and is built as one engine from the ground up — with no third-party database bundled inside.

AthenaDB is in Early Access (pre-GA). The synthetic-data MVP is complete, and real customer data is gated behind an external crypto and storage-format audit that is enforced in the engine itself. Evaluate freely on your own non-sensitive data during Early Access.

Create a portal account and start a trial. The portal calls the live licensing edge to mint a 180-day trial license bound to your account, then shows the live window and activation count on your dashboard. No credit card is required.

No. AthenaDB is one engine we built ourselves, end to end — the storage format and cryptography are ours to secure and audit. There is no bundled third-party datastore.

AthenaDB runs natively on Windows (Desktop and Server) and Linux (Debian/Ubuntu, Red Hat/Fedora, SUSE) — install with a graphical installer, apt or rpm packages, or the command line. On Windows it integrates with Active Directory. macOS and FreeBSD are on the way, and we plan to keep expanding across the Unix world.

Lite is the engine embedded with no server — an encrypted, offline-first local database with the full hybrid-retrieval stack (keyword, vector, timeline, entity). It's the single-file form for desktop and edge.

Yes. AthenaDB has a native SQL engine plus a SQLite-compatible C API and an athenadb-sqlite3 drop-in CLI, so many existing SQLite applications run unchanged — and gain encryption and AI-native retrieval.

Not as SQL Server or PostgreSQL deliver them, and that is deliberate. Server-side logic today lives in domain packs — signed, permission-gated, audited units rather than loose code stored in the database. Saved views, reusable functions, and declarative event hooks are planned to cover the everyday cases. The one thing we will not add is a trigger that runs arbitrary code inside a write; event hooks give you the same reaction from a defined set of safe actions, with every firing recorded.

That is the plan, and the point is where it runs. A native AI runtime is being built into the engine: models load from encrypted, signed packages into protected memory and run inside the database's own security boundary, so your documents and context are not shipped to a third party to get an answer. You will be able to run it in the database, on a separate model machine you own (reached over an encrypted, mutually authenticated link), or against an outside provider when you choose to — that last path being opt-in, classification-restricted, and audited. Vector search and embeddings are available today.

A pack is a signed, sandboxed add-on that layers a vertical's schema, ingestion, and workflows onto the core engine. Legal, Medical, and Research ship today. The signed load-and-sandbox mechanism is built and tested; dynamic install and pack purchase are on the roadmap.

AthenaDB Studio — a cross-platform Qt desktop app for SSMS-class database administration, licensing, packs, Trust Fabric, and cognitive explorers — is in active pilot development (local + remote DBA). Until signed Studio installers ship, use the Athena CLI and account dashboard for the supported public management surfaces.

It's a first-class inter-instance trust layer: sync and cross-instance queries ride verifiable trust rather than ad-hoc credentials. Instance sync is a subset of it.

Use the CLI: `athenadb db license activate <key>`. Activation contacts the live edge at license.athenadb.app. Check status any time with `athenadb db license trial status`.

Billing and checkout are planned for a later release. During Early Access, editions are available via trial and direct contact with sales.