High-performance time series databases are often closed-source products that not only can be costly to maintain, but also require learning proprietary query languages. Not QuestDB.
A free open source database developed for fast processing of time series data and events, QuestDB is queried using familiar SQL, along with time series extensions for temporal aggregations. And yet its Java-based query engine delivers blazingly fast response times with minimal latency.
To deliver its impressive query performance, QuestDB takes advantage of a custom storage engine, modified Google Swiss Tables, SIMD instructions, parallel execution queuing, and pipeline prefetch optimizations. Its onboard web console provides a schema explorer, a code editor for interactive queries, and some basic table and visualization tools.
QuestDB is still a work in progress. Not all queries have been optimized yet, and the SQL dialect is still being fleshed out. But when you get breakthrough time series query performance together with SQL support, who cares about a few wrinkles?
Licensed under Apache 2.0, QuestDB runs on Linux, MacOS, and Windows and makes packages available for Docker and Homebrew.
— James R. Borck