Alternatives / Amazon Timestream
Looking for an open source Amazon Timestream alternative? We compared 8 open source time-series and analytics databases by license, ingestion, and maintenance. InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, and QuestDB are the closest, while Pinot, CrateDB, and IoTDB target analytics and IoT.
Written by Maxime DERAME
Last updated:
| Alternative | Best for | License |
|---|---|---|
| InfluxDB | Time-series SQL with Telegraf | MIT or Apache-2.0 (InfluxDB 3 Core) |
| TDengine | Industrial time-series | AGPL-3.0 |
| TimescaleDB | PostgreSQL extension | Apache-2.0 + Timescale License |
| VictoriaMetrics | Prometheus-compatible | Apache-2.0 |
| QuestDB | Very fast ingestion | Apache-2.0 |
| Apache IoTDB | IoT with edge-cloud sync | Apache-2.0 |
| Apache Pinot | Real-time OLAP for many users | Apache-2.0 |
| CrateDB | SQL for machine data | Apache-2.0 |
We looked for open-source databases that store and query time-series data like Timestream. We verified each project's license, recent activity, stars, and self-hosting in its repository. See our methodology for the full criteria.
InfluxDB 3 Core is dual licensed MIT or Apache-2.0 with SQL queries. TimescaleDB extends PostgreSQL with compression and continuous aggregates, and QuestDB targets high ingestion throughput. VictoriaMetrics is a Prometheus-compatible time-series database.
TDengine and Apache IoTDB target industrial IoT. Apache Pinot serves sub-second queries to many concurrent users, and CrateDB is a distributed SQL database for machine data.
VictoriaMetrics keeps multi-tenancy, anomaly detection, and downsampling in its enterprise tier. TimescaleDB has some features under the Timescale License, and TDengine is AGPL-3.0.
All eight had commits within days of this update.
Timestream is a proprietary AWS service billed by writes, storage, and queries, which ties you to AWS. Open-source databases run anywhere, but you operate them.
InfluxDB 3 Core is a time series database for real-time ingest and fast queries over event and metrics data, queried with SQL. Its source is dual licensed MIT or Apache-2.0. Features such as clustering are in commercial editions.
Pricing: Free Core edition; commercial editions are paid.
TDengine is an AGPL-3.0 time-series database designed for industrial IoT, with data subscription, stream processing, and connectors for protocols such as MQTT, OPC, and Kafka. Its industrial focus matters if you need a general-purpose tool.
Pricing: Free open-source edition; enterprise and cloud editions are paid.
TimescaleDB is a PostgreSQL extension for time-series data with automatic partitioning, hybrid row and columnar storage, compression of up to 95 percent, continuous aggregates, and about 200 time-series SQL functions. Code outside its tsl directory is Apache-2.0, and the tsl directory is under the source-available Timescale License.
Pricing: Free community edition; managed cloud is paid.
VictoriaMetrics is a fast, cost-effective time series database compatible with Prometheus, with MetricsQL, long-term retention, high-cardinality handling, OpenTelemetry support, and single-binary or cluster deployment. An enterprise tier adds extra features.
Pricing: Free open source; paid enterprise tier.
QuestDB is an Apache-2.0 time-series database focused on fast ingestion and fast SQL queries, with the PostgreSQL wire protocol and Grafana and Pandas integrations. Its throughput figures are the vendor's own.
Pricing: Free open-source edition; enterprise features are paid.
Apache IoTDB is an Apache-2.0 time-series database built for industrial IoT workloads, with high-throughput writes, high compression, edge-to-cloud synchronization, and integrations with Hadoop, Spark, Flink, and Grafana.
Pricing: Free and open source.
Apache Pinot is an Apache-2.0 distributed OLAP datastore for sub-second analytical queries on streaming and batch data. It suits high-concurrency, user-facing analytics more than ad-hoc analyst queries or text search.
Pricing: Free and open source.
CrateDB is a distributed SQL database for high-speed ingestion and complex queries on large datasets, with horizontal scalability, time-series optimization, Lucene-based full-text search, and geospatial support, suited to IoT and log analytics.
Pricing: Free open source; managed cloud and enterprise support are paid.
| Alternative | Type | License | Query language | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| InfluxDB | Time-series DB | MIT or Apache-2.0 (Core) | SQL | Closest replacement |
| TDengine | Time-series DB | AGPL-3.0 | SQL | Industrial IoT |
| TimescaleDB | Time-series DB | Apache-2.0 + Timescale License | SQL | Teams on PostgreSQL |
| VictoriaMetrics | Metrics DB | Apache-2.0 (+ paid enterprise) | MetricsQL / PromQL | Monitoring metrics |
| QuestDB | Time-series DB | Apache-2.0 | SQL | High-throughput data |
| Apache IoTDB | Time-series DB | Apache-2.0 | SQL-like | IoT deployments |
| Apache Pinot | OLAP DB | Apache-2.0 | SQL | User-facing analytics |
| CrateDB | Distributed SQL | Apache-2.0 | SQL | Machine data |
Want the closest general database
InfluxDB 3 Core uses SQL and a large plugin ecosystem.
Want to stay in PostgreSQL
TimescaleDB adds compression and continuous aggregates.
Serve many concurrent users
Pinot targets sub-second queries on streaming data.