head to head · open source
drawDB vs QuestDB
drawDB has 40,223 GitHub stars, 3,350 forks, 241 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. QuestDB has 17,496 stars, 1,685 forks, 952 open issues and last shipped yesterday. drawDB leads on adoption by 130% (40,223 vs 17,496 stars). drawDB is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; QuestDB is written in Java under Apache-2.0. drawDB has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, QuestDB 10%. QuestDB was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| drawDB | QuestDB | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 17K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick drawDB if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick QuestDB if
- You want the QuestDB feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and QuestDB fits your workflow better
About drawDB
drawDB Free, simple, and intuitive database schema editor and SQL generator. DrawDB is a robust and user friendly database entity relationship diagram (ERD) editor right in your browser. Build diagrams with a few clicks, export and import SQL scripts, generate migrations, customize your editor, and more without creating an account. See the full set of features on here. Getting Started Local Development Build Docker Build If you want to enable sharing, set up the server and environment variables according to .env.sample . This is optional unless you need to share files. Contributing Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for…
read the full drawDB overview →
About QuestDB
English 简体中文 QuestDB is the open source, low latency time series database on open formats. It ingests millions of events per second, computes on live data in milliseconds, and keeps years of history queryable. One SQL engine spans ingestion, stream processing, and tiered storage. The engine is zero GC Java with C++ and Rust on the hot paths. Data lives in memory mapped, time partitioned columns. Queries run across all cores with SIMD and JIT compiled filters. There are no third party dependencies on the data path. Storage is tiered: a parallel write ahead log, native columnar partitions, and Apache Parquet. In…
read the full QuestDB overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Databases projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Databases field.
Frequently asked questions
Is drawDB or QuestDB more popular?
drawDB has 40,223 GitHub stars and QuestDB has 17,496. drawDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are drawDB and QuestDB free?
Both are open source. drawDB is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and QuestDB under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between drawDB and QuestDB?
drawDB is written in JavaScript and QuestDB in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, drawDB or QuestDB?
Choose drawDB if you want the larger community (40,223 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose QuestDB if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.