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Case studies and use cases

An overview of how companies across industries are using SurrealDB to simplify architectures and power real-time, AI-driven applications.

Lizzie Holmes avatar
Written by Lizzie Holmes
Updated this week

Overview

Real-world examples are one of the most effective ways to understand where a database like SurrealDB shines.

SurrealDB powers production systems across industries and use cases — from AI-native startups to large-scale e-commerce platforms to IoT systems processing millions of events.

This article highlights diverse ways organisations are using SurrealDB to simplify architectures, unify data models, and build next-generation applications.


Use Cases

  • Generative AI: SurrealDB unifies structured and unstructured data, with vector search, graphs, and transactional updates in a single query, ideal for RAG, agent memory, and real-time LLM apps.

  • Knowledge Graphs: Model rich relationships with native edges, graph traversals, and live queries. Perfect for dynamic ontologies, identity graphs, and explainable AI.

  • Real-Time Analytics: Fraud detection systems, recommendation engines, and log analytics solutions leveraging real-time capabilities, time-series data, and event driven archtiectures. Build reactive dashboards and alert systems without middleware.

  • Embedded Systems: Lightweight Rust binary that delivers multi-model capabilities, full ACID, ML inference, and real-time sync, perfect for mobile, IoT, and field deployments.

  • OLTP & BaaS: SurrealDB simplifies backends with multi-model ACID transactions, secure auth, and schemaless or schemafull design, all without glue code.


Industries

  • Finance & Fintech: combine graph-based fraud detection, audit trails, and scoring models to power fast, secure, compliant fintech apps.

  • Defence & Aerospace: deploy at the edge or in hardened clusters. SurrealDB supports mission-critical telemetry, versioned state, and role-based access.

  • Gaming & Entertainment: track players, sessions, matches, and items in one real-time engine. Reactive queries enable multiplayer games and live leaderboards.

  • Energy & Manufacturing (IoT): store time-series data, monitor devices, and embed ML for predictive maintenance, all in a single store from edge to cloud.

  • Retail & E-commerce: personalise feeds and offers with vector search, user graphs, and real-time signals.

  • Healthcare: model patients, records, and sensors with field-level security and time-travelled queries, built for data integrity and compliance.


Key features

  • Multi-model data support: Use a single database to handle relational, graph, document, time-series, and vector data — ideal for modern applications with evolving data needs.

  • Real-time processing: Built-in subscriptions and triggers enable reactive architectures and real-time experiences.

  • Graph-native capabilities: Model and query complex relationship networks without requiring separate graph database infrastructure.

  • Vector search for AI: Integrated support for vector embeddings enables retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), semantic search, and recommendation systems.

  • Multi-tenant support: True isolation and role-based access control (RBAC) allow easy scaling of SaaS platforms.


Featured case studies

SurrealDB powers Samsung Ads’ real-time audience insights platform across 235 million devices.
Samsung consolidated three databases into SurrealDB, delivering personalised experiences at scale.

Results:

  • Reduced latency for complex graph queries across user-device interactions.

  • Supported dynamic audience segmentation at scale.

  • Consolidated multiple data sources into a unified SurrealDB backend.

SurrealDB powers Saks Fifth Avenue’s AI-driven product recommendation engine with 1.5 million weekly recommendations.
Saks uses a single SurrealDB node to drive personalised shopping experiences.

Results:

  • Stored product embeddings and user interaction data in SurrealDB’s hybrid document and vector model.

  • Powered semantic search and personalised recommendations in real time.

  • Enabled rapid iteration on machine learning pipelines without re-architecting storage.

SurrealDB powers Tencent’s unified monitoring and event-processing platform, replacing nine backend tools.
Tencent consolidated its event-processing and observability stack with SurrealDB.

Results:

  • Simplified system architecture → one database instead of separate stores for time-series, graph, and document data.

  • Achieved scalable ingestion of millions of events per second.

  • Gained deep observability via SurrealDB’s flexible query language and graph features.

SurrealDB powers Aspire Comps’ fast-growing retail prize competitions platform, serving over 700,000 users.
Aspire Comps consolidated five backend services into a single SurrealDB instance, improving scalability and reducing architectural complexity.

Results:

  • Replaced multiple backend services with SurrealDB’s multi-model database.

  • Achieved high-concurrency handling and reduced system latency.

  • Established a scalable foundation for future growth and AI integration.


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