Real-time databases like Aerospike are essential components of modern data environments, working in tandem with streaming technologies to enable more real-time use cases in production. The growth in streaming architectures has expanded the market for real-time databases, making them a differentiator for various industries. While some people may wonder if the proliferation of streaming technologies obviates the need for databases, the truth is that high-performance, distributed databases have been a real-time component of companies' data environments even before the widespread adoption of distributed streaming platforms like Kafka. Real-time databases deliver workloads with over 1 million transactions per second at under 100-, 10-, or even single-millisecond throughput at 99th percentiles, making them crucial for applications that require low-latency access to specific data points. Additionally, real-time databases can help narrow the operational-analytical gap by providing native secondary index capabilities and integrating tightly with Trino and Presto. Overall, streaming technologies and real-time databases are essential tools that work best in tandem and are rarely alternatives to each other.