The Airframe Index Coverage Q2 2026 By Airframe Intelligence
Report No. 01 · The Stack Migration Report

Where peers are moving.

An editorial read of the direction we keep seeing across 143,000+ organizations and 114,000+ deployment case studies in the Airframe registry. Legacy stack on the left, modern stack on the right. The diagram is illustrative of pattern and direction, not a measured count.

Research by Airframe Intelligence Signal base 114,000+ deployment case studies Vendor conflicts 0
Legacy stack Modern stack ETL (legacy) Category · SaaS wave Observed frequently Data warehouse Category · SaaS wave Bi-directional Observability (legacy) Category · SaaS wave Common pattern BI (legacy) Category · SaaS wave Common pattern On-prem ETL Long tail feeder Code copilot (v1) Category · cloud-native wave ETL (OSS) Category · cloud-native wave Lakehouse Category · AI-native wave Streaming ETL Category · AI-native wave Observability (OSS) Category · cloud-native wave Events-first obs. Category · AI-native wave Notebook-native BI Category · AI-native wave Metrics-layer BI Category · AI-native wave Agentic code copilots Category · AI-native wave Observed frequently Illustrative pattern
Fig. 01 · Legacy stack to modern stack Illustrative · patterns in the registry Ribbon thickness is schematic, not a measured count Illustrative of patterns the registry surfaces
The incumbent is not losing because the insurgent is better. The incumbent is losing because the category rewrote itself around them.
Airframe Intelligence · Chapter 01
Chapter 02

Patterns, by category.

The legacy-to-modern paths the registry surfaces most often. Bars are editorial weight, not a measured ranking; reason codes are the dominant driver read in each case, aggregated from deployment narratives in the Airframe corpus.

01 Managed ETL → OSS ETL Price compression, OSS control, connector breadth at parity
02 Legacy BI → Notebook-native BI Notebook-native, AI-first surface, semantic-layer compatibility
03 Code copilot (v1) → Editor-native agent Wave-2 displacement, editor-native agent, multi-file edits
04 Managed observability → OSS observability Bill shock, OSS escape hatch, open instrumentation
05 Data warehouse → Lakehouse AI workload gravity, ML-native surface, unified governance pitch
06 Lakehouse → Data warehouse BI gravity, SQL surface, maturation of embedded Python
07 Managed observability → Events-first obs. Events-first, high-cardinality, SRE-preferred ergonomics
08 Code copilot (v1) → Agentic CLI copilot Autonomy, CLI-native surface, long-horizon refactor
09 Legacy BI → Metrics-layer BI Semantic continuity, founder-team pedigree, pricing
10 Managed ETL → Streaming / code-first ETL Cost-per-row, streaming-first, Python-native control
11 On-prem ETL → OSS ETL Modernization, cloud-warehouse fit, vendor exit
12 Dashboard BI → Notebook-native BI AI-first analyst workflow, semantic layer, notebook ergonomics
Fig. 02 · Legacy-to-modern patterns, by category Bars are editorial weight, not a measured count Reason codes aggregated from deployment narratives Illustrative of patterns the registry surfaces
Chapter 03

Why they moved.

The ten reason codes the registry most frequently surfaces as the primary driver, read across 114,000+ deployment case studies. Bars are editorial weight, not precise percentages.

01 Bill shock, cost compression Dominant
02 AI-era capability gap Strong
03 OSS and self-host leverage Strong
04 Architect and SRE preference Notable
05 Consolidation play Notable
06 Contract and leverage cycle Notable
07 Governance and data residency Emerging
08 Acquired vendor, forced move Emerging
09 Talent and hiring gravity Long tail
10 Other, idiosyncratic Long tail
Fig. 03 · Reason codes the registry surfaces most often Editorial weight, not precise percentages Bars relative to the dominant pattern Illustrative of patterns the registry surfaces

Bill shock is the loudest single driver, but the joint weight of the next three (AI-era capability gap, OSS leverage, architect preference) reads as substantially larger than price alone. The category moved, and the defense has to move with it. Reason codes are a starting point for your own peer conversations, not a substitute for them.

The registry behind the read

An Airframe editorial pattern is written when the corpus repeatedly surfaces directional movement across independent deployment artifacts. To see the underlying registry, request access or apply to the founding cohort at airframe.ai.

Organizations
143,000+ tracked in the registry
Signal base
114,000+ deployment case studies
Vendor corpus
1,433 vendors, 1974 to 2026
Independence
Zero vendor sponsorship, ever
Also in The Airframe Index
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A dozen software categories, one recurring pattern. The flagship dossier on why every legacy software category carries more vendors today than it did at the start of the decade.
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ReferenceQ2 2026
Registry methodology.
What counts as a tool, the five signals each row carries, the public sources behind the data, and the audit cadence the registry runs on.
Read the methodology →
Long readQ2 2026
Fifty years of enterprise software.
The flagship long read behind the Index. Every major vendor ranked and animated across time, drawn from the 1,433-vendor registry spanning 1974 to 2026.
Open the explorer →
Founding cohort

Apply to the founding cohort.

A small group of Fortune 1000 organizations is building their AI system of record with us now. Free to start. No vendor sponsorship. Pre-launch terms carry forward beyond launch.

Apply to the cohort →
Airframe · 2026 Privately underwritten. No vendor money, no sponsored research, no paid placement.
Registry 17,000+ tools · 114,000+ case studies · 1,433 vendors, 1974–2026.
Vendor conflicts Zero. The subscription is paid the same regardless of which tool the registry recommends.
Contact hello@airframe.ai