TimescaleDB Overview

Compared to the trade-offs demanded by these two alternatives (relational vs. NoSQL), TimescaleDB offers the best of both worlds for time-series data:

• Connects to any client or tool that speaks PostgreSQL, no changes needed.
• Time-oriented features, API functions, and optimizations.
• Robust support for Data retention policies.

• Transparent time/space partitioning for both scaling up (single node) and scaling out (forthcoming).
• Right-sized chunks (two-dimensional data partitions) on single nodes to ensure fast ingest even at large data sizes.
• Parallelized operations across chunks and servers.

• Engineered up from PostgreSQL, packaged as an extension.
• Proven foundations benefiting from 20+ years of PostgreSQL research (including streaming replication, backups).

Next: In part to understand TimescaleDB’s design choices, let us ask: What is time-series data?