Flyway is an Apache-2.0 licensed, Java-based database migration tool maintained by Redgate that evolves a database schema easily and reliably across all instances, built for developers and database administrators who apply schema changes as part of a build, deploy, or manual migration workflow.

What it is

Flyway lives in the Java ecosystem and ships as the Maven Central artifact org.flywaydb:flyway-core. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Docker and Java, and integrates with the Maven and Gradle build tools, with third-party plugins available for SBT, Ant, Spring Boot, Grails, Play!, DropWizard, Grunt, Griffon and Ninja. The project source sits at flyway/flyway on GitHub under the Apache License, Version 2.0, copyright Red Gate Software Ltd 2010-2026, and it is brought to you by Redgate with the help of many contributors.

The concrete problem it solves is schema change applied per instance. Flyway exists so that a database schema evolves easily and reliably across all instances rather than being changed environment by environment, which is why its topics include database-migrations, database-deployment, database-management, database-administration, continuous-delivery and continuous-deployment. The open source README explicitly positions the community download as the CLI edition, so the thing it replaces for most users is the ad hoc, hand-run schema change step in a deployment process.

Key capabilities

• Supports 50+ DBMS, including Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Azure Synapse, SAP HANA (including SAP HANA Cloud), SQLite, IBM DB2 LUW, Amazon Aurora MySQL, Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Google Cloud Spanner, SingleStoreDB, CockroachDB, TimescaleDB, Babelfish, Cassandra, Couchbase, Fabric data warehouse, Fabric database, Percona XtraDB Cluster and Sybase ASE.
• Extends database coverage through Community DB Submissions in flyway/flyway-community-db-support: ClickHouse, Cubrid, Databricks, IBM DB2 z/OS, DuckDB, Ignite, Iris, Oceanbase, QuestDB, TiDB, Timeplus and YugabyteDB.
• Ships build-tool integration for Maven and Gradle, plus third-party plugins for SBT, Ant, Spring Boot, Grails, Play!, DropWizard, Grunt, Griffon and Ninja.
• Runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Docker and Java.
• Publishes the core library as org.flywaydb:flyway-core on Maven Central.
• Is downloadable as Flyway OSS through the Flyway documentation pages, and the CLI distribution is available separately.
• Carries repository topics for aurora, db2, devops, continuous-delivery and continuous-deployment, reflecting the environments it is used in.

Who uses it and how

• Individual developers, whom Redgate describes as the audience for Flyway Community: people who want a simple and reliable migrations framework that gives the essentials to manage database changes.
• Enterprises, for whom the Flyway Enterprise edition is designed as a secure and scalable way to manage complex database changes, built on Redgate's database comparison technology.
• Delivery pipelines, where the continuous-delivery and continuous-deployment topics and the Maven and Gradle integration place schema migration inside the build and release process.
• Teams running mixed database estates, from Aurora and DB2 to SAP HANA Cloud, Fabric data warehouse and Fabric database, who want one migration mechanism rather than one per engine.
• Contributors and community submitters, who add database support through the community DB support repository and contribute to the main project, which has 1,631 forks and 258 open issues.

Getting started

Download Flyway OSS from the Flyway documentation pages, or consume the org.flywaydb:flyway-core artifact from Maven Central through Maven or Gradle. CLI and Docker installations are also documented, and getting started guides and reference documentation are published on the Redgate documentation site.

How it compares

The Apache-2.0 open source project is the CLI edition, while the GUI and additional capabilities exist only in the Redgate editions, which are stated not to be part of the Flyway open source project. Redgate Flyway Community is a free database migrations tool maintained by Redgate, and Redgate Flyway Enterprise is a commercial enterprise-grade database change management solution aimed at organisations needing a secure and scalable way to manage complex changes. The licence and cost model therefore split cleanly: self-hostable Apache-2.0 core at no cost, versus proprietary Redgate editions with free trials and, for Enterprise, comparison technology and enterprise support.

When to use it — and when not to

Choose Flyway when a Java or Docker runtime is available, when Maven or Gradle already drives the build, and when the database is one of the 50+ supported engines or a community-submitted one. A self-hoster must operate the CLI itself and supply the migration files, and anyone who needs a GUI out of the box must look beyond this project, because the GUI editions are maintained by Redgate and are explicitly not part of the open source project. The README excerpt is short and defers most operational detail to the external Redgate documentation, so teams wanting a self-contained handbook in the repository will need those external pages.