Timescale is the company behind TimescaleDB, an open-source Postgres time-series database. See pricing, features, pros, cons, and FAQs.
Timescale is the company behind TimescaleDB, an open-source time-series database built as a native extension to PostgreSQL rather than a standalone database engine. This design lets developers store and query time-series, events, and analytical data using standard SQL and the broader Postgres tooling ecosystem, while gaining performance optimizations purpose-built for time-ordered data such as automatic partitioning, compression, and continuous aggregation.
The company was founded in 2015 by CEO Ajay Kulkarni and CTO Michael Freedman, who met as MIT freshmen, and is headquartered in New York City with roughly 125 employees. Timescale has raised approximately $180 million in venture funding, including a $110 million Series C led by Tiger Global with participation from Benchmark, New Enterprise Associates, Redpoint Ventures, Icon Ventures, and Two Sigma Ventures, reaching a valuation over $1 billion.
In June 2025, the company rebranded its overall identity from Timescale to Tiger Data, repositioning its managed cloud platform as general-purpose modern PostgreSQL infrastructure for analytical and AI/agentic workloads, while retaining the TimescaleDB name for its widely used open-source Postgres extension.
TimescaleDB automatically partitions data into 'hypertables,' which behave like normal Postgres tables to applications but are internally chunked by time for fast ingestion and query performance at scale. Continuous aggregates precompute rollups (like hourly or daily averages) so dashboards and analytics queries stay fast even as raw data volume grows into the billions of rows.
Native compression can reduce storage footprint significantly for time-series data, and tiered storage automatically moves older, less-queried data to cheaper storage layers to control costs. Because it is a Postgres extension, TimescaleDB supports full SQL, existing Postgres extensions, and standard database tooling and drivers, avoiding the need to learn a new query language.
The managed Tiger Cloud service adds automated backups, high availability, read replicas, and enterprise security features like SAML SSO and HIPAA compliance, layered on top of the same open-source TimescaleDB engine used in self-hosted deployments.
The core TimescaleDB extension is free and open source and can be self-hosted on any PostgreSQL-compatible infrastructure at no licensing cost. The managed Tiger Cloud service uses consumption-based pricing: compute starts around $30/month (Performance/Developer tier) or $36/month (Scale tier), billed hourly based on usage, with storage billed per GB-month based on compressed data volume.
The Scale tier adds unlimited tiered storage at a lower per-GB rate, multi-node high availability, unlimited VPCs, and SOC 2 compliance reporting. A custom-priced Enterprise tier adds 24/7 production SLAs, HIPAA compliance, SAML SSO, cross-region backups, and larger instance sizes up to 64 CPU cores and 256 GB of memory per service. A free tier and 30-day free trial are available for evaluation before committing to paid usage.
Timescale is used to store and query time-series, event, and analytical data at scale using PostgreSQL, commonly for IoT, monitoring, financial, and application analytics workloads.
Yes, the core TimescaleDB extension is open source and free to self-host; the managed Tiger Cloud service uses consumption-based pricing with a free tier available.
Timescale was founded in 2015 by CEO Ajay Kulkarni and CTO Michael Freedman.
Yes, in June 2025 the company rebranded from Timescale to Tiger Data, while keeping TimescaleDB as the name of its open-source PostgreSQL extension.
Tiger Cloud pricing is usage-based, with compute starting around $30 to $36 per month and storage billed per GB-month; a custom-priced Enterprise tier is also available.
TimescaleDB is a native extension to PostgreSQL, not a separate database engine, so it supports standard SQL and Postgres tooling.
Timescale has raised approximately $180 million in total funding, including a $110 million Series C led by Tiger Global that valued the company at over $1 billion.
TimescaleDB is built on PostgreSQL and supports full standard SQL, while InfluxDB uses its own query languages and storage engine; TimescaleDB is often preferred by teams wanting to stay within the Postgres ecosystem.