Cloudflare has acquired Outerbase, a developer database company, to strengthen the application development capabilities of its connectivity cloud service platform.
Developers receive enhanced experience
This acquisition is designed to significantly enhance developers’ work within Cloudflare’s platform, making it much easier to build and deploy sophisticated applications. Specifically, developers will now have improved capabilities for creating database-backed, full-stack applications with AI functionality—all running on Cloudflare’s global network.
According to Cloudflare’s announcement, this move is designed to “dramatically enhance” the development experience on their platform, helping developers build and manage more powerful tools at scale.
“Businesses are racing to build AI-powered applications to be as productive, innovative, and competitive as possible,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. “Our goal is to make it easy and accessible for any developer, regardless of expertise, to build database-backed applications that can scale. Outerbase’s technology and design expertise are an important factor in accelerating this improved developer experience.”
Making databases accessible for everyone
From the onset, Outerbase wanted to make data accessible to everyone, regardless of their tech skills. According to the blog post detailing the acquisition, the company started with a simple idea to improve database interfaces. This quickly evolved.
“When we first started Outerbase, we saw how complicated databases could be. Even experienced developers struggled with writing queries, indexing data, and locking down their data,” the company explains. “Meanwhile, non-developers often felt locked out and couldn’t access the data they needed. We believed there had to be a better way.”
The idea is for the platform to make working with data feel natural and straightforward, rather than having to arm wrestle with it each time. Users can browse through tables, edit information, and run queries without being bogged down with SQL commands. And if a user is already comfortable with SQL, Outerbase gives them tools to dig deeper and share their expertise with teammates.
A natural evolution for both companies
Outerbase also added easy-to-digest visualizations so everyone on the team, technical or not, can quickly gain insight into what’s happening with their data. This is key, especially as AI technology continues to advance.
Brandon Strittmatter, co-founder and CEO of Outerbase, emphasized that the company’s core mission has always revolved around simplifying data management for developers. He views the Cloudflare acquisition as a natural next step that will give rocket boosters to this idea.
“Joining Cloudflare allows us to keep doing that, but faster and at a much larger scale,” Strittmatter said. “We’ve built Outerbase on top of Cloudflare, so this next step feels natural. Now, we get to take what we’ve built and make it part of the platform itself. I’m beyond excited about this opportunity — not just because of what it means for the team, but how as part of Cloudflare, we will shape the way people are building developer tools and AI applications.”
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