[opensourcedex]

GreptimeDB is a free, open source databases project written in Rust and released under Apache-2.0. It has 6,778 GitHub stars, 576 forks and 264 open issues, and was last pushed 6 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #120 of 206 tracked projects in Databases, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 53 stars over the last 30 tracked days.

What is GreptimeDB?

What it is

GreptimeDB is an open-source observability database built on a single columnar engine that stores metrics, logs, and traces together. It lives in the cloud-native infrastructure and operations ecosystem, written in Rust and licensed under Apache-2.0. All three signal types share one table model composed of tags, a timestamp, and fields, so when signals carry common identifiers such as service, host, or trace ID, they can be correlated in SQL without moving data between separate databases. Compute and storage are disaggregated: object storage holds the data while memory and local-disk caches keep recent and frequently queried data close to compute.

The concrete problem it solves is backend sprawl. Teams commonly run Prometheus alongside Loki or Elasticsearch, maintaining three systems with three query languages and three operational surfaces. GreptimeDB replaces that arrangement with one backend that ingests through OpenTelemetry, Prometheus Remote Write, Loki Push, or Elasticsearch Bulk, and queries through SQL, PromQL, and Jaeger-compatible trace queries. It also targets teams that have outgrown Prometheus on cardinality or retention but do not want the Thanos or Mimir operational surface, and teams that need long retention on object storage without standing up a separate analytics stack.

Key capabilities

  • Ingests OpenTelemetry (OTLP), Prometheus Remote Write, Loki Push, Elasticsearch Bulk, InfluxDB line protocol, and gRPC.
  • Queries with SQL, PromQL, and Jaeger-compatible trace queries, plus MySQL and PostgreSQL wire protocols.
  • Uses S3, GCS, Azure Blob, and S3-compatible endpoints as primary storage, with memory and local-disk caches.
  • Provides retention policies, downsampling, continuous aggregation, and explicit table partitioning.
  • Ships inverted, skipping, and fulltext indexes for data management.
  • Correlates metrics, logs, and traces in SQL when signals share identifiers such as service, host, or trace ID.
  • Runs the same engine and semantics on resource-constrained devices.

Who uses it and how

  • Teams running Prometheus plus Loki or Elasticsearch consolidate onto one backend instead of three.
  • Operators who have outgrown Prometheus on cardinality or retention migrate without adopting the Thanos or Mimir operational surface.
  • Users needing long retention on object storage query telemetry with SQL rather than only a domain query language.
  • Teams storing GenAI or agent telemetry under OTel GenAI conventions place it alongside infrastructure signals.
  • Deployments on resource-constrained devices use the same engine and semantics as larger installations.

Getting started

The README points to a Try GreptimeDB section, a Getting Started guide, and a Build From Source path, with stable, canary, and nightly release channels. The homepage at greptime.com/product/db is listed as the product entry point.

When to use it — and when not to

Compatibility is per protocol, and query-side coverage is narrower than ingestion, so migration happens one signal at a time rather than all at once. A self-hoster must operate object storage as primary storage plus memory and local-disk caches, and should expect the limitations and edition boundary the README documents. The project lists commercial support separately, which signals that some needs fall outside the Apache-2.0 core.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

GreptimeDB Logo

Metrics, logs, and traces.
One engine, on your infrastructure.

A columnar database for metrics, logs, and traces on object storage. Apache-2.0 licensed core.

User Guide | API Docs | Roadmap 2026

Stable Canary Nightly

stable for production  ·  canary includes pre-releases  ·  nightly is a weekly snapshot of main

Docker Pulls GitHub Actions Codecov License
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Introduction

GreptimeDB is an open-source observability database. Metrics, logs, and traces run on one columnar engine over object storage and share one table model: tags, timestamp, and fields. When signals carry common identifiers such as service, host, or trace ID, you can correlate them in SQL without moving data between databases.

Ingest through OpenTelemetry, Prometheus Remote Write, Loki Push, or Elasticsearch Bulk. Use SQL across observability data and PromQL for metrics. Migrate ingestion one signal at a time without rebuilding your collectors.

Why You Might Use It

  • You run Prometheus plus Loki or Elasticsearch and want one backend instead of three
  • You have outgrown Prometheus on cardinality or retention and don't want the Thanos/Mimir operational surface
  • You need long retention on object storage without a separate analytics stack
  • You want to query telemetry with SQL, not only a domain query language
  • You are storing GenAI or agent telemetry (OTel GenAI conventions) alongside infrastructure signals
  • You need the same engine and semantics on resource-constrained devices

Learn more in Why GreptimeDB.

Overview

A quick overview of what GreptimeDB ingests, how it connects to other systems, and what its distributed engine lets you do.

What's Supported
Ingest OpenTelemetry (OTLP), Prometheus Remote Write, Loki Push, Elasticsearch Bulk, InfluxDB line protocol, gRPC
Query SQL, PromQL, Jaeger-compatible trace queries, MySQL and PostgreSQL wire protocols
Storage S3, GCS, Azure Blob and S3-compatible endpoints as primary storage, with memory and local-disk caches
Built in Retention policies, downsampling, continuous aggregation, explicit table partitioning, and inverted / skipping / fulltext indexes

Compute and storage are disaggregated: object storage holds the data, while memory and local-disk caches keep recent and frequently queried data close to compute.

Compatibility and Migration

Compatibility is per protocol, and query-side coverage is narrower than ingestion.

Compatible Not compatible
Prometheus Remote Write ingestion; PromQL queries Gaps are listed in PromQL compatibility
Loki Push ingestion; dual-write through Grafana Alloy makes the cutover gradual LogQL and the rest of the Loki query API
Elasticsearch _bulk ingestion in the open-source core; QueryDSL partially, in Enterprise Most other Elasticsearch APIs

Benchmarks:

Limitations and Edition Boundary

Cluster deployment, object storage, the Flow engine, and every ingestion protocol listed above are in the Apache-2.0 build. Repartitioning, region migration, and index creation are manual operations there.

Read replicas, workload isolation, and automated repartitioning are GreptimeDB Enterprise features, along with enterprise security and governance. The Enterprise overview has the current list, and pricing has the edition comparison.

Architecture

GreptimeDB can run in two modes:

  • Standalone — single binary for development and small deployments.
  • Distributed — four components, each independently scalable:
    • Frontend — protocol entry (OTel, Prometheus, MySQL/PostgreSQL, gRPC, ingestion APIs for Elasticsearch/InfluxDB/Loki) and the distributed query engine. Stateless, scales horizontally.
    • Datanode — region engine with WAL, memtable, SST, cache, compaction, and indexes. Persists data to object storage. Elastic.
    • Metasrv — metadata, routing, repartitioning, and security. Backed by a pluggable KV layer (etcd or RDS).
    • Flownode (optional) — continuous flow computation (streaming and materialized views).

For deeper coverage, see the architecture doc or DeepWiki.

GreptimeDB System Overview

Try GreptimeDB

For AI agents — paste this prompt into your agent:

Read https://docs.greptime.com/SKILL.md and follow the instructions
to deploy, configure, ingest, and query GreptimeDB.

docker run -p 127.0.0.1:4000-4003:4000-4003 \
  -v "$(pwd)/greptimedb_data:/greptimedb_data" \
  --name greptime --rm \
  greptime/greptimedb:latest standalone start \
  --http-addr 0.0.0.0:4000 \
  --grpc-bind-addr 0.0.0.0:4001 \
  --mysql-addr 0.0.0.0:4002 \
  --postgres-addr 0.0.0.0:4003

Dashboard: http://localhost:4000/dashboard

Read more in the full Install Guide.

Troubleshooting:

  • Cannot connect to the database? Ensure that ports 4000, 4001, 4002, and 4003 are not blocked by a firewall or used by other services.
  • Failed to start? Check the container logs with docker logs greptime for further details.

Getting Started

Build From Source

Prerequisites:

  • Rust toolchain — nightly, pinned by rust-toolchain.toml
  • Protobuf compiler (>= 3.15)
  • C/C++ building essentials: gcc / g++ / autoconf and the glibc dev package (libc6-dev on Ubuntu, glibc-devel on Fedora)
  • Python toolchain (optional, only for some test scripts)

Build and run:

make                          # build greptime binary
cargo run -- standalone start # start in standalone mode

Common dev commands:

make fmt            # format Rust code
make clippy         # lint (fails on warnings)
make test           # unit + integration tests (uses cargo-nextest)
make sqlness-test   # SQL regression tests

See the Contribution Guidelines for the full developer workflow.

Tools & Extensions

Project Status

GreptimeDB is generally available, with stable APIs and regular releases. It runs in production at scale — OceanBase Cloud operates 80+ GreptimeDB clusters managing 300 TB of logs, cutting log storage cost by 60%+ after migrating from Grafana Loki. See more in case studies.

Read the v1.0 highlights and 2026 roadmap, or browse the version reference.

If GreptimeDB is useful to you, please star the repo.

Known Users

Community

We invite you to engage and contribute!

License

GreptimeDB is an open-core project. Its core is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

A small set of peripheral, enterprise-only features are gated behind the enterprise Cargo feature (not built by default) and are governed by the separate GreptimeDB Enterprise License. Source files under that license carry an explicit Enterprise License header.

Commercial Support

Scaling observability on your infrastructure? GreptimeDB Enterprise adds the operational, security, and support layer for production deployments. Contact us for details.

Contributing

Acknowledgement

Special thanks to all contributors! See AUTHOR.md.

All trademarks, logos, and brand names referenced in this README and in the Overview diagram are the property of their respective owners. Their use is for identification purposes only and does not imply endorsement or affiliation.

Frequently asked questions

Is GreptimeDB free to use?

GreptimeDB is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does GreptimeDB do?

Unified observability database for metrics, logs, and traces

What is GreptimeDB written in?

GreptimeDB is primarily written in Rust. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/greptimeteam/greptimedb, and it has 6,778 GitHub stars.