head to head · open source
InfluxDB vs TimescaleDb
InfluxDB has 31,797 GitHub stars, 3,857 forks, 2,165 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. TimescaleDb has 23,788 stars, 1,184 forks, 389 open issues and last shipped yesterday. InfluxDB leads on adoption by 34% (31,797 vs 23,788 stars). InfluxDB is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; TimescaleDb is written in C under a custom or non-standard licence. InfluxDB has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, TimescaleDb 5%. TimescaleDb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (database, time-series), 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.
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Side by side
| InfluxDB | TimescaleDb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 24K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Rust | C |
| Last push | 2026-10-30 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.9K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick InfluxDB if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick TimescaleDb if
- You want the TimescaleDb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and TimescaleDb fits your workflow better
About InfluxDB
InfluxDB 3 Core Open source time series database for real time events, analytics, and monitoring powered by Apache Arrow, DataFusion, and Parquet. InfluxDB 3 Core is a database built to collect, process, transform, and store event and time series data. It is ideal for use cases that require real time ingest and fast query response times to build user interfaces, monitoring, and automation solutions. Common use cases include: Monitoring sensor data Server monitoring Application performance monitoring Network monitoring Financial market and trading analytics Behavioral analytics InfluxDB is optimized for scenarios…
read the full InfluxDB overview →
About TimescaleDb
TimescaleDB is a PostgreSQL extension for high performance real time analytics on time series and event data Quick Start with TimescaleDB Get started with TimescaleDB in under 10 minutes. This guide will help you run TimescaleDB locally, create your first hypertable with columnstore enabled, write data to the columnstore, and see instant analytical query performance. What You'll Learn How to run TimescaleDB with a one line install or Docker command How to create a hypertable with columnstore enabled How to insert data directly to the columnstore How to execute analytical queries Prerequisites Docker installed on…
read the full TimescaleDb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is InfluxDB or TimescaleDb more popular?
InfluxDB has 31,797 GitHub stars and TimescaleDb has 23,788. InfluxDB has the larger community by that measure.
Are InfluxDB and TimescaleDb free?
Both are open source. InfluxDB is licensed under Apache-2.0, and TimescaleDb has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between InfluxDB and TimescaleDb?
InfluxDB is written in Rust and TimescaleDb in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, InfluxDB or TimescaleDb?
Choose InfluxDB if you want the larger community (31,797 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose TimescaleDb if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.