CrateDB vs QuestDB

CrateDB: Distributed SQL database built on Lucene for real-time analytics over machine, IoT and JSON data. QuestDB: Columnar time-series SQL database built for market data and very high ingest rates.

key differences

CrateDB is primarily a relational database; QuestDB is time-series.
CrateDB is built for larger datasets (≤ 1 PB) than QuestDB (≤ 10 TB).
Horizontal scaling is native in CrateDB and none in QuestDB.
Only CrateDB has full-text search, vector search, geospatial, json.
Only QuestDB has materialized views, ttl / expiry, streaming ingest.

choose cratedb for

+Industrial IoT and machine data analytics
+Fleet and vehicle telemetry
+Log and event analytics with SQL
+Hybrid search over JSON documents

best at · Real-time analytics, IoT, Time-series

choose questdb for

+Market data and order book analytics
+Trading and risk dashboards
+Industrial and aerospace telemetry
+Crypto exchange tick storage

best at · Time-series, Tick data, Real-time analytics

CrateDBDistributed SQL database built on Lucene for real-time analytics over machine, IoT and JSON data.

QuestDBColumnar time-series SQL database built for market data and very high ingest rates.

overview

Primary model

Relational

Time-Series

Also supports

Document, Time-Series, Search Engine, Spatial, Vector

Columnar / OLAP, Relational

Type

Database engine

Status

Active

Developer

Crate.io

QuestDB

First release

2014

2019

Latest version

6.4.6 (Oct 8, 2026)

10.1.0 (Oct 22, 2026)

License

Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0

Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0 (open source); Enterprise is commercial

Free tier

✓

popularity

WhichDB Score

27.3

34.1

Rank

#104

#60

GitHub stars

4.4K

17.5K

Stack Overflow questions

139

282

scale & guarantees

Comfortable data size

Large (≤ 1 PB)

Medium (≤ 10 TB)

Horizontal scaling

Native

None

Multi-region

Read replicas

ACID

Limited

Consistency

Eventual

Strong

Schema

Flexible

Architecture

Distributed, Client server

Single node, Primary replica, Client server

deployment

Self-hosted

✓

Vendor-managed cloud

✓

Serverless

—

Embedded

—

Edge

—

Clouds

AWS, Azure, Google Cloud

–

capabilities

Transactions

—

Joins

✓

Secondary indexes

✓

Full-text search

✓

—

Vector search

✓

—

Geospatial

✓

—

JSON

✓

—

Change data capture

—

Triggers

—

Stored procedures

—

Materialized views

—

✓

TTL / expiry

—

✓

Pub/Sub

—

Columnar storage

✓

In-memory

—

Durable persistence

✓

Compression

✓

Encryption at rest

—

Role-based access

✓

Time travel

—

Branching

—

Online schema changes

✓

Streaming ingest

—

✓

Offline sync

—

Runs in WebAssembly

—

interfaces

Query languages

SQL

Client languages

Python, Java, JavaScript, Go, C#, PHP

Java, Python, Go, Rust, C, C++, C#, JavaScript

Best for

Real-time analytics, IoT, Time-series, Search

Time-series, Tick data, Real-time analytics, IoT

Add more to this comparison Not sure either fits? Try smart match

CrateDB vs QuestDB: FAQ

What is the difference between CrateDB and QuestDB?

CrateDB: Distributed SQL database built on Lucene for real-time analytics over machine, IoT and JSON data. QuestDB: Columnar time-series SQL database built for market data and very high ingest rates. CrateDB is primarily a relational database; QuestDB is time-series. CrateDB is built for larger datasets (≤ 1 PB) than QuestDB (≤ 10 TB). Horizontal scaling is native in CrateDB and none in QuestDB.

When should I choose CrateDB over QuestDB?

Choose CrateDB for industrial IoT and machine data analytics; fleet and vehicle telemetry; and log and event analytics with SQL. Choose QuestDB for market data and order book analytics; trading and risk dashboards; and industrial and aerospace telemetry.

Is CrateDB or QuestDB more popular?

QuestDB ranks #60 on the WhichDB Score (34.1/100) and CrateDB ranks #104 (27.3/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are CrateDB and QuestDB open source?

Yes. CrateDB is open source. License: Apache License 2.0. Yes. QuestDB is open source. License: Apache License 2.0 (open source); Enterprise is commercial.