TimescaleDB

TimescaleDB is time-series data without leaving Postgres. It's an extension, not a separate database, which means your existing SQL knowledge, tools, and ORMs all just work. For teams already running Postgres, adding time-series capabilities is an ALTER EXTENSION away.

InfluxDB is the purpose-built alternative — faster at low-cardinality ingestion with its new 3.0 Apache Arrow architecture. QuestDB is the speed demon for analytics workloads. For commercial managed time-series, Datadog and New Relic bundle it into their monitoring stacks.

Use TimescaleDB if you're already on Postgres and need time-series alongside relational data. It outperforms InfluxDB 3.5x at high cardinality (many devices/metrics).

The catch: the license changed from Apache 2.0 to a "Timescale License" that restricts offering it as a managed service — fine for your own use, problematic if you're building a DBaaS. And it inherits Postgres's storage overhead, so pure time-series workloads may be leaner on InfluxDB.