An independent look at QuestDB, the open-source time-series database: architecture, features, pricing tiers, and how it compares to InfluxDB.
QuestDB is an open-source time-series database purpose-built for workloads that generate enormous volumes of time-stamped data and need both extremely fast ingestion and low-latency SQL analytics, such as financial market data, industrial sensor telemetry, and application observability metrics. The company was founded in 2019 by Vlad Ilyushchenko, whose background is in building low-latency electronic trading systems, and Nicolas Hourcard, formerly of Nasdaq, and it operates as a Y Combinator-backed startup with headquarters spanning London and New York.
QuestDB's core differentiator is combining the raw ingest and query performance associated with specialized time-series engines with a familiar, standard SQL interface extended with time-series-specific functions, so teams do not need to learn a proprietary query language to get the performance benefits of a purpose-built engine.
Under the hood, QuestDB uses a column-oriented storage engine paired with SIMD-vectorized query execution to process large volumes of data quickly, and it supports flexible ingestion through the InfluxDB Line Protocol, the PostgreSQL wire protocol, and REST endpoints, so it can slot into existing data pipelines without requiring a proprietary client.
QuestDB extends SQL with time-series-native functions like SAMPLE BY for time-bucketed aggregation and LATEST ON for retrieving the most recent value per series, and it supports open data formats such as Parquet alongside native integrations with common observability tools like Grafana and Prometheus. QuestDB Enterprise builds on the open-source core with role-based access control, TLS everywhere, data compression, cold storage tiering, and replication for organizations with stricter operational and compliance requirements.
The QuestDB core database is fully open source under the Apache 2.0 license and free to self-host, with no artificial feature limits placed on the open-source version for single-node deployments. This makes it accessible to individual developers and teams who are comfortable managing their own infrastructure.
For teams that prefer a managed service, QuestDB Cloud is a usage-based hosted offering that starts at approximately 272 US dollars per month depending on instance size and usage. Organizations with larger-scale or compliance-driven needs can opt for QuestDB Enterprise, a custom-priced self-hosted subscription that adds high availability, RBAC, TLS across all protocols, and dedicated support, with exact pricing available directly from QuestDB.
Yes, the core QuestDB database is open source under the Apache 2.0 license and free to self-host. QuestDB Cloud and QuestDB Enterprise are paid managed and enterprise offerings respectively.
QuestDB is used for time-series workloads that need fast ingestion and low-latency SQL queries, such as financial market data, IoT sensor telemetry, and application observability metrics.
QuestDB was founded in 2019 by Vlad Ilyushchenko (CTO) and Nicolas Hourcard (CEO), and the company is backed by Y Combinator.
QuestDB's open-source core is released under the Apache 2.0 license.
Both are time-series databases, but QuestDB emphasizes a standard SQL interface with time-series extensions and column-oriented, SIMD-accelerated query execution, while InfluxDB uses its own query languages and storage engine.
Yes, QuestDB uses standard SQL extended with time-series-specific functions like SAMPLE BY and LATEST ON.
Yes, QuestDB Cloud is a managed, usage-based hosted version of QuestDB starting at approximately 272 US dollars per month.