Hiring Data Reveals a Reshuffling of U.S. Software Market Share: Snowflake, Databricks, Grafana, and Power BI Show Standout Momentum

Overview

The report uses mentions of specific software products in job postings as a proxy for demand to track adoption and relative share across five major verticals in the U.S. software industry. Its overall conclusion is that software demand has not lost momentum amid the evolution of AI, with industry hiring continuing to grow steadily, although the market is rapidly reshuffling internally: analytical databases and observability lead growth, open-source tools are expanding their influence, and the winners across the respective segments include Snowflake, Databricks, Grafana, PostgreSQL, HubSpot, Braze, and Microsoft Power BI.

Core views

The report first assesses demand resilience at the industry level. Barclays machine-read nearly 300 million job postings spanning almost a decade and recorded mentions of 90 software products. The data came from the careers pages of thousands of companies and covered more than 30,000 companies in 2025 alone. The report argues that when companies explicitly list software skills or technology stacks in job requirements, it generally means they are using the corresponding products. Because software business models are also often tied to licensed seats, hiring mentions can serve as an alternative indicator of customer demand, adoption progress, and relative market share. Software-related job postings continue to grow steadily and faster than total job postings, which the report views as a positive sign of demand resilience amid negative AI-related sentiment. However, because the data sources and company coverage continue to expand and there was another significant expansion earlier in the year, the data have an upward bias. The report therefore uses them only for relative comparisons among different job-posting baskets rather than relying on absolute year-over-year growth rates. By vertical, analytical databases have been the fastest-growing category over the past two years. The report partly attributes this to AI applications requiring “clean data,” which raises the priority of data infrastructure within the software investment cycle; observability ranks second. Although transactional databases and BI visualization have grown more slowly, both have job-posting samples exceeding approximately 4 million, a significantly larger base than most categories, which have around 1 million postings, and therefore face a higher growth hurdle. Marketing technology's growth rate falls between those of observability and visualization. In terms of samples, analytical databases have approximately 1.2 million unique postings, observability approximately 1.4 million, marketing technology approximately 700,000, transactional databases approximately 4 million, and BI visualization more than approximately 4 million. Share changes among cloud vendors and open-source products have not been uniform. The combined share of Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle in transactional databases fell from approximately 75% to approximately 60% over the past decade; the report's broader characterization also states that they currently account for roughly half. Over the same period, the share of open-source tools rose from approximately 30% to approximately 50%. Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server have slowly lost share, while Amazon DynamoDB and Azure Cosmos DB have grown from smaller bases. In analytical databases, cloud vendors' share increased rapidly before 2022 and displaced legacy products such as Teradata and Netezza, but has since plateaued, while Snowflake and Databricks have instead surpassed the cloud vendors. Observability differs: cloud vendors are still gaining share, primarily driven by Amazon CloudWatch, followed by Azure Monitor and Amazon OpenSearch. The overall influence of open-source products exceeds that of cloud-vendor products in both transactional databases and observability. Analytical databases represent the report's most prominent example of market-share reshuffling. Ten years ago, Teradata appeared in more than half of the relevant job postings; by 2026, Snowflake and Databricks had become the clear leaders, each appearing in nearly half of postings, with Databricks catching up to or even slightly surpassing Snowflake based on this customer-demand metric. Among cloud vendors, Google BigQuery accounts for approximately 20%, Amazon Redshift approximately 10%, and Microsoft Synapse approximately 5%. Redshift has continued to decline from its early leadership position in the late 2010s, BigQuery has become the leader among the three cloud vendors, and Synapse has been flat to declining over the past approximately five years. Open-source ClickHouse remains small, with a share of approximately 3%, but has already surpassed Cloudera, Netezza, and Vertica. This vertical tracks 10 products in total, of which 6 belong to public companies, 3 to private companies, and 1 is an open-source product. The central change in the observability market is the rise of Grafana. Ten years ago, Splunk accounted for approximately half of postings, Elastic approximately 30%, and SolarWinds approximately 10% to 20%; by 2026, open-source Grafana had just surpassed Splunk, with both exceeding approximately 30%. Elastic and Datadog each account for approximately 20%, but are moving in opposite directions: Elastic's share is declining, while Datadog's continues to rise and has caught up with Elastic. Amazon CloudWatch and Dynatrace each account for approximately 10% to 15%; CloudWatch is growing faster, while Dynatrace is broadly stable and is the smallest in scale among publicly listed pure-play software vendors. The smaller OpenTelemetry and Prometheus each account for approximately 5%, but adoption is also rapid. Privatized products such as New Relic, SolarWinds, and Sumo Logic have smaller or continuously declining shares. This market has approximately 1.4 million unique postings and approximately 30 products, of which approximately 20 belong to public companies, 3 to private companies, and 7 are open-source products. Transactional databases are more “sticky” because they are embedded in the underlying application layer: switching databases often requires rewriting applications, and different workloads also require different architectures. Structured numerical workloads such as billing and core banking are better suited to SQL databases such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL, or PostgreSQL, while e-commerce applications containing product catalogs may be better suited to NoSQL products such as MongoDB. Scale and speed requirements also affect selection, so this segment has many credible competitors. Ten years ago, Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle each accounted for 40% to 50%; both currently still account for approximately 30%, but PostgreSQL has caught up. MySQL accounts for approximately 20%, and MongoDB exceeds 15%. PostgreSQL has replaced MySQL as the preferred open-source SQL database, with its momentum further supported by cloud services such as AWS Aurora and platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, and Supabase. MongoDB retains a solid position but has lost some momentum, and the report considers regaining that momentum a key task for its new CEO. In marketing technology, Adobe accounted for approximately half of postings ten years ago, Oracle's Eloqua and CrowdTwist together accounted for approximately 25%, and Salesforce approximately 15%. HubSpot now ranks first at approximately 40%, followed by Adobe at approximately 30% and Salesforce at approximately 20%. The report believes HubSpot has penetrated customers of different sizes and use cases through its broad platform spanning CRM, marketing automation, content management, and sales enablement. However, this is not an entirely like-for-like comparison: Adobe Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Eloqua, and CrowdTwist are more directly comparable with customer engagement platforms such as Braze and Klaviyo, while HubSpot has broader coverage. Within the modern marketing technology platform group, Mailchimp has lost the most share over the past decade, while Braze has gained the most. Mailchimp still ranks second, with Iterable and Klaviyo rising to third and fourth, respectively. The report expects Braze and Klaviyo to continue gaining share as enterprises prioritize advanced customer engagement, cross-channel orchestration, real-time personalization, and AI marketing workflows. Private vendors with weaker capital resources may struggle to keep pace with product innovation and market expansion, while Mailchimp may remain under pressure. The BI and visualization market is dominated by Microsoft Power BI. Ten years ago, the leaders were Tableau and Oracle BI; by 2026, approximately 75% of visualization job postings mentioned Power BI, and the report links its share growth to Microsoft's bundling of Power BI with Office. After peaking at approximately 60% in 2021, Tableau has fallen to below 40%. The market remains relatively fragmented, with 14 products tracked in total, of which 9 belong to public companies and 5 to private companies. The report also notes that 14 of the 90 software products analyzed are owned by private credit issuers, meaning hiring data can also provide a window into changes in operating demand among software private credit issuers.

Analysis framework

Barclays first machine-read job postings to identify mentions of specific software products, then constructed a comprehensive product universe across five verticals: analytical databases, transactional databases, observability, marketing technology, and BI & visualization. The report then divided the number of postings mentioning a given product by the total number of postings mentioning any major product in the same vertical to estimate relative share and observe changes over a decade, while also distinguishing among public companies, private companies, open-source tools, and hyperscale cloud vendors. The analysis first compares software hiring with overall hiring, then compares growth across verticals, and finally drills down into product share, competitive direction, and business mechanisms. The report explicitly avoids treating data affected by expanding coverage as an absolute year-over-year indicator.

Methodology notes

• Quantitative/Factor/Portfolio Theory

  Machine-Reading Job Postings as Alternative Data

  The report machine-read nearly 300 million job postings and identified name mentions of 90 software products, using large-scale, long-term nontraditional data to observe software adoption.

• Industry/Sector Analysis FrameworkSupply-demand framework

  Using Hiring Mentions as a Proxy for Customer Demand and Adoption

  When companies recruit employees with experience in specific software, it generally means they are using the corresponding product. Because software revenue is also often tied to licensed seats, the report uses changes in hiring mentions to connect customer demand, product adoption, and potential sales volumes.

• Industry/Sector Analysis Framework

  Estimating the Share of Hiring Mentions Within Software Verticals

  The report compares the number of postings mentioning a single product with the total number of postings mentioning any major product in the same software vertical to estimate relative market share. This method is used for trend and cross-sectional comparisons rather than to measure absolute revenue share.

Asset mapping & comparison

Structured mapping from thesis to named assets (strengths, weaknesses, peers, risks).

• Snowflake (SNOW)

  One of the clear leaders in analytical databases, with a hiring-demand share near half, having surpassed cloud vendors and legacy database products.

  Strengths

  Its vertical has grown the fastest over the past two years, with standout momentum in product mentions within job postings.

  Weaknesses

  Databricks has caught up based on the report's metric, placing its leadership advantage under competitive pressure.

  Comparison

  Co-leads with Databricks, ahead of BigQuery, Redshift, Synapse, and Teradata.

  Risks

  Continued gains by Databricks in customer-demand share could limit its relative lead.

• Databricks (Private Company)

  Its analytical database demand share has caught up to or slightly surpassed Snowflake and exceeds that of hyperscale cloud-vendor products.

  Strengths

  Its share of job-posting mentions is near half, with momentum among the strongest in the entire report.

  Comparison

  Co-leads the segment with Snowflake and is clearly ahead of major cloud vendors and legacy products.

• Grafana

  An open-source observability product that has surpassed Splunk to become the market-share leader under the report's metric.

  Strengths

  It has the strongest demand growth in observability, with its 2026 share exceeding approximately 30%.

  Weaknesses

  The report notes that its surge in demand still requires further examination.

  Comparison

  Leads Splunk, with momentum also stronger than Elastic and Dynatrace.

  Risks

  The drivers and sustainability of its rapid rise in demand remain issues that the report recommends monitoring closely.

• Datadog

  A publicly listed pure-play observability software vendor whose share continues to grow and has recently caught up with Elastic.

  Strengths

  Approximately 20% share of job postings and trending upward.

  Weaknesses

  Its current share remains below Grafana and Splunk.

  Comparison

  Moving in the opposite direction from the declining Elastic, with momentum second only to Grafana.

  Risks

  The market remains highly fragmented, with competition from open-source products and cloud-vendor offerings.

• MongoDB (MDB)

  An important NoSQL product in transactional databases, currently with a share of job postings exceeding 15%.

  Strengths

  Well suited to unstructured or NoSQL application workloads such as product catalogs and retains a solid position in the highly sticky database market.

  Weaknesses

  It has recently lost some relative momentum.

  Comparison

  Its share is below PostgreSQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server at approximately 30% each, and also below MySQL at approximately 20%.

  Risks

  PostgreSQL is being supported by cloud vendors and by Snowflake, Databricks, and Supabase, while MongoDB's new CEO needs to regain market momentum.

• Oracle (ORCL)

  It still holds a substantial share in transactional databases, but its long-term momentum is declining; its marketing technology and BI products have also lost share.

  Strengths

  Transactional databases have a large installed base and strong stickiness, with the current share of job-posting mentions still approximately 30%.

  Weaknesses

  Its transactional database share has declined from 40% to 50% ten years ago to approximately 30%, while it has also retreated from its leading position in marketing technology.

  Comparison

  Its transactional database share is currently broadly comparable with Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL.

  Risks

  Continued share expansion by open-source databases and newer marketing platforms could create further pressure.

• Microsoft Power BI

  It has become the dominant platform in the BI and visualization market.

  Strengths

  Bundling with Office has driven adoption, with approximately 75% of visualization job postings mentioning Power BI.

  Weaknesses

  Microsoft's share has not strengthened in parallel for some of its transactional and analytical database products.

  Comparison

  It caught up with Tableau in 2022 and has since performed more strongly; Tableau has now fallen below 40%.

  Risks

  The BI visualization market remains fragmented, with many other vendors.

• HubSpot

  It has become the platform with the highest share of marketing technology job postings, currently accounting for approximately 40%.

  Strengths

  It spans CRM, marketing automation, content management, and sales enablement, penetrating companies of different sizes and a broad range of use cases.

  Weaknesses

  Its product coverage is broader than that of platforms focused on customer engagement, so the share comparison is not entirely like-for-like.

  Comparison

  It leads Adobe at approximately 30% and Salesforce at approximately 20% and has surpassed multiple legacy enterprise marketing platforms.

• Braze and Klaviyo

  Both benefit from enterprises migrating toward modern customer engagement, cross-channel orchestration, real-time personalization, and AI marketing workflows.

  Strengths

  Braze recorded the largest share gain in the modern marketing technology platform group over the past decade, while Klaviyo has risen to fourth in the group.

  Comparison

  Braze has stronger share momentum than Mailchimp; Iterable and Klaviyo are the third- and fourth-largest platforms in the group, respectively.

Key data

• Total Machine-Read Job PostingsNearly 300 millionSpanning almost a decade and recording mentions of 90 software products
• Company Source Coverage in 2025More than 30,000 companiesJob postings came from the careers pages of thousands of companies
• Analytical Database SampleApproximately 1.2 million unique postingsThe fastest-growing of the five verticals over the past two years
• Observability SampleApproximately 1.4 million unique postingsRanked second in growth over the past two years
• Transactional Database SampleApproximately 4 million unique postingsThe slowest growth over the past two years, but from a very large base
• Marketing Technology SampleApproximately 700,000 unique postingsCovering more than 20 software products
• BI & Visualization SampleMore than approximately 4 million unique postingsSlower growth over the past two years, but from a larger base
• Combined Transactional Database Share of Cloud VendorsDeclined from approximately 75% to approximately 60%Change in share of job-posting mentions over the past decade
• Open-Source Share of Transactional DatabasesRose from approximately 30% to approximately 50%Change in share of job-posting mentions over the past decade
• Analytical Database Leaders in 2026Snowflake and Databricks each near 50%Databricks has caught up with Snowflake based on the hiring-demand metric
• Observability Leaders in 2026Grafana and Splunk both exceed approximately 30%Grafana has just surpassed Splunk
• Current Shares of Major Transactional DatabasesOracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and PostgreSQL each at approximately 30%MySQL at approximately 20%, MongoDB above 15%
• Current Marketing Technology LeaderHubSpot at approximately 40%Adobe at approximately 30%, Salesforce at approximately 20%
• Power BI Share of Job-Posting MentionsApproximately 75%The dominant platform in the BI visualization market in 2026
• Tableau Share of Job-Posting MentionsBelow 40%Peaked at approximately 60% in 2021
• Products Associated with Private Credit Issuers14 of 90 productsThe report believes job postings can also provide a perspective on software private credit

Impact & implications

The report believes continued growth in software-related hiring indicates that industry demand remains resilient amid the evolution of AI, but opportunities are shifting away from legacy vendors and some cloud-vendor products toward faster-growing independent platforms and open-source tools. Analytical databases are benefiting from AI-related data preparation demand, with Snowflake and Databricks leading; Grafana and PostgreSQL show how open-source ecosystems are reshaping competition in observability and transactional databases; and HubSpot, Braze, Klaviyo, and Power BI demonstrate the importance of platform breadth, modern functionality, and product bundling to adoption. Hiring data also cover private companies and private credit issuers, providing a supplement in areas where traditional revenue or market-share data are difficult to observe.

Risks

• Hiring data have an upward bias due to the continued addition of data sources and companies, as well as a significant expansion earlier in the year, so absolute year-over-year growth cannot be directly treated as actual market growth.
• Marketing technology platforms differ in product coverage, so share comparisons between HubSpot and customer engagement platforms are not entirely like-for-like.
• MongoDB has lost some relative momentum and faces competitive pressure from PostgreSQL and the expansion of its cloud-vendor ecosystem.
• Private marketing technology vendors with weaker capital resources may struggle to sustain the same pace of product innovation and market expansion as larger competitors.
• Mailchimp may remain under pressure as customers shift toward more comprehensive and flexible enterprise-grade platforms.

What to watch

• Track whether software-related job postings can continue growing faster than the overall hiring market.
• Monitor the relative hiring demand for Snowflake and Databricks and whether cloud vendors' share in analytical databases remains stagnant.
• Watch the drivers behind Grafana's surge in demand and whether its share lead over Splunk can be sustained.
• Observe whether MongoDB's new CEO can regain market momentum relative to PostgreSQL.
• Track whether Braze and Klaviyo can continue gaining share and whether pressure on Mailchimp's share persists.
• Monitor Power BI's lead over Tableau and the share effect of bundling with Office.