Gel Data Inc. is shutting down, and its team is joining Vercel to contribute to building a leading Python cloud platform, leveraging their expertise in Python infrastructure. Gel, known for innovations like async/await in CPython, asyncio, uvloop, asyncpg, and its own open-source database technology, will cease accepting new registrations and database instance creations, fully closing by January 31 of next year. Although Gel Cloud will shut down, the technology will remain available as open source on GitHub, with migration guides to managed Postgres setups provided. The team at Gel reflects on its journey, sharing insights into successful and challenging ideas, including declarative schema management, an innovative network protocol, and the EdgeQL query language, which blends SQL and GraphQL features. While the company navigated the complexities of developing a new database front-end atop Postgres, it faced challenges in focus and market positioning. The team remains optimistic about their future contributions to Vercel and the broader Python community, with lessons from Gel's journey intended to inspire future database innovators.