Glauber Costa, also known in the developer community as glommer, is a systems engineer turned startup founder reshaping how modern applications manage data. As the Founder and CEO of Turso, Costa has introduced a distributed, developer-first database platform that takes the classic power of SQLite and reimagines it for the edge era. Built for performance, portability, and ease of use, Turso is quickly emerging as a go-to choice for developers seeking production-grade databases that work seamlessly across devices and regions.
Reinventing SQLite for Today’s Web
At its core, Turso is what Costa calls “SQLite for production”. It’s fully managed, embeddable, and optimized for speed at the edge, featuring offline sync, multi-region writes, and edge-read operations that modern developers crave. In a world where global latency and offline capabilities matter more than ever, Turso delivers a frictionless backend without the traditional database complexity.
One of Costa’s standout product moves came with the launch of Turso’s Offline Sync + Expo integration, a feature that allows apps to function completely offline while syncing to the cloud automatically. It’s a leap forward for developer experience and reflects Costa’s sharp product instincts.
Systems Programming Roots: From Linux to Rust
Before founding Turso, Costa spent over 20 years in low-level systems and infrastructure engineering. He contributed to the Linux Kernel, built distributed infrastructure at ScyllaDB, and later authored glommio, a high-performance asynchronous runtime for Rust.
His open-source credentials remain central to his identity, and influence. Costa continues to push for pragmatic innovation in developer tools, often sharing deep reflections across his LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter) channels. His audience of 5,000 followers includes engineers, founders, and database aficionados eager to learn from someone who’s worked at the metal and now builds for the cloud.
Thought Leadership That Challenges the Status Quo
Costa doesn’t just build tools, he builds ideas. In recent posts, he’s questioned the limits of AI-written code, argued that debugging is the true path to code understanding, and warned that open-source alone isn’t a sustainable business model.
His perspective is informed by real-world product leadership, including the development of Turso’s “Limbo” project, which gained unexpected early traction and forced a fast-tracked roadmap. As Costa wrote: “I can’t imagine it would be the success it was… I will do just that.”
He has spoken at industry conferences, including Epic Web Conf 2024, where he shares technical deep dives and startup lessons alike.
Why Glauber Costa Matters
Glauber Costa is more than just a founder, he’s a systems thinker with startup speed. From kernel engineering to real-time databases, his work is shaping how developers build and deploy global applications. Turso is a reflection of that journey: fast, portable, opinionated, and deeply informed by two decades of writing infrastructure code.
At a time when developers are demanding lighter, faster, and smarter tools, Costa is delivering. His belief that “in the future, databases will be everywhere” isn’t just a tagline, it’s a blueprint. And with Turso gaining traction across the edge and full-stack ecosystems, it’s a future that’s coming fast.
