Marking Drasi’s first anniversary: introducing GQL support for Continuous Queries

A year ago, we launched Drasi with a mission to make it easier for developers and organizations to build change-driven solutions that respond instantly to changes in data across distributed systems. We believe applications should not only store and retrieve information but also have the ability to react immediately when the underlying data they depend upon changes.

Since then, Drasi has evolved from an early open-source project to a Cloud Native Computing Foundation(CNCF) Sandbox project with a growing community. We’ve welcomed contributors from different organizations, refined Drasi’s core concepts of Sources, Continuous Queries, and Reactions, and established the foundation for building a new category of systems that are natively change-driven.

As we celebrate Drasi’s one-year anniversary, I’m excited to share another important milestone: Drasi now supports the Graph Query Language (GQL).

Why GQL matters

In the world of databases, languages matter. Structured Query Language (SQL) changed how developers worked with relational databases, providing a standard way to query, update, and reason about structured data. For nearly four decades, SQL has been the dominant database language standard. The landscape expanded in April 2024, when ISO/IEC officially released GQL (Graph Query Language) as the first new international database language standard since SQL.

Documented in ISO/IEC 39075, GQL (not to be confused with GraphQL) is specifically designed for property graphs that represent entities (nodes) and the relationships (edges) between them.

Why is this significant? Property graphs are increasingly central to modern data management. They allow developers to capture context-rich connections between entities, transactions, or events that relational tables alone struggle to represent efficiently. GQL enables developers to model, query, and modify data in graph-based systems with a consistent, standardized syntax without relying on vendor-specific extensions. Backed by the same ISO process that governs SQL, GQL provides a common language for graph-based systems to converge on, strengthening interoperability and ensuring long-term adoption.

Just as SQL provided a universal language for relational data, GQL represents a leap forward for graph data, with the potential to unify the graph ecosystem. By adopting GQL early, Drasi aligns with this standard, giving the community a future-proof foundation for building change-driven solutions with confidence.

From the beginning, our vision has been to make Drasi open, extensible and developer-friendly, allowing developers to work with the tools and languages that fit their needs. We know that no single query language or paradigm fits every scenario. That’s why this release is not about replacing what came before but about expanding choice. Drasi now supports queries written in both GQL—the new ISO standard for property graphs—and openCypher, a widely adopted query language supported by many existing graph users.

This dual support gives developers more choice for building Continuous Queries in Drasi. Developers already familiar with openCypher can continue to use it without interruption and those looking to adopt GQL for standards alignment can do so immediately within Drasi. In addition, organizations gain flexibility; they can evolve their systems at their own pace rather than committing to a single language prematurely. In practical terms, Drasi becomes a more inclusive platform, meeting developers where they are while also providing a clear path toward the future of graph query standards.

Drasi at one year: building the foundation

Drasi’s one-year milestone is about more than adding support for another query language. It reflects the steady growth and maturation of Drasi over its first year. Over the past twelve months, we’ve seen the project evolve from a core team–driven effort into an active open-source initiative with external contributors shaping its direction. We’ve delivered technical enhancements such as SDKs for building custom Sources and Reactions, integrations with Dapr, and we were welcomed into the CNCF Sandbox, an important recognition of Drasi’s potential role in shaping the cloud-native ecosystem.

The addition of GQL support is an important step forward, but it is just one part of a broader journey. Our goal remains the same—to make it simple for developers to build systems that natively react to change. And as we reflect on our first year, one theme stands out: the importance of community and collaboration. Drasi’s progress has been made possible by the support of contributors, partners, and early adopters who have shared their time, expertise, and ideas. As we look ahead to year two, we’re excited to continue that journey together and see what you will build with Drasi. 

Learn more about Drasi 

If you’d like to dive deeper into Drasi’s support for GQL, here is a companion technical blog post, that includes examples of GQL queries in action and details on Drasi’s multi-language support architecture. You can also get started right away by exploring the official Drasi documentation on GQL and openCypher.

Join the Drasi community

We’re grateful to everyone who has contributed to Drasi’s first year whether through code, feedback, documentation, or conversation. With your continued involvement, next year promises to be even more exciting. Join us in the following forums:

• Drasi’s Discord server for discussions, announcements, feedback, and connecting with the Drasi community.
• Drasi’s website for in-depth documentation and tutorials to help get you started.
• Drasi GitHub repos where the project code is freely available under the Apache 2.0 license.
• Drasi’s YouTube for educational content.
• Drasi’s social channels on BlueSky and X.

Mark Russinovich

Chief Technology Officer, Deputy Chief Information Security Officer, and Technical Fellow, Microsoft Azure

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