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FiloDB vs Grafana Mimir

FiloDB: Distributed in-memory time-series database with PromQL, ingesting from Kafka and persisting to Cassandra. Grafana Mimir: Grafana Labs' horizontally scalable, multi-tenant long-term store for Prometheus and OTLP metrics.

key differences

  • Licensing: FiloDB is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0); Grafana Mimir is open source (copyleft) (GNU AGPL v3.0).
  • Grafana Mimir is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than FiloDB (≤ 1 PB).
  • Only FiloDB has secondary indexes, columnar storage, in-memory.
  • Only Grafana Mimir has ttl / expiry.

choose filodb for

  • +Large-scale operational metrics for dashboards and alerting
  • +Long-retention Prometheus-compatible storage at high cardinality
  • +Real-time event and application-metric debugging

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

choose grafana-mimir for

  • +Centralised multi-tenant metrics for many clusters
  • +Long-term Prometheus storage on object storage
  • +Platform teams offering metrics-as-a-service internally

best at · Observability, Time-series

FiloDBDistributed in-memory time-series database with PromQL, ingesting from Kafka and persisting to Cassandra.
Grafana MimirGrafana Labs' horizontally scalable, multi-tenant long-term store for Prometheus and OTLP metrics.
overview
Primary model
Time-Series
Time-Series
Also supports
Columnar / OLAP
–
Type
Database engine
Database engine
Status
Active
Active
Developer
FiloDB contributors (started by Evan Chan)
Grafana Labs
First release
2015
2022
Latest version
0.9.17.2 (Nov 18, 2022)
3.2.3 (Oct 22, 2026)
License
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0
Open source (copyleft)GNU AGPL v3.0
Free tier
✓
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
2.2
15.8
Rank
#489
#203
GitHub stars
1.5K
5.3K
Stack Overflow questions
–
10
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Massive (Multi-PB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
Native
Multi-region
None
None
ACID
None
None
Consistency
Eventual
Eventual
Schema
Flexible
Schemaless
Architecture
Distributed, In memory
Distributed, Shared storage
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
—
✓
Serverless
—
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
–
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
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
PromQL
PromQL
Client languages
–
–
Best for
Time-series, Observability, Real-time analytics
Observability, Time-series
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FiloDB vs Grafana Mimir: FAQ

What is the difference between FiloDB and Grafana Mimir?

FiloDB: Distributed in-memory time-series database with PromQL, ingesting from Kafka and persisting to Cassandra. Grafana Mimir: Grafana Labs' horizontally scalable, multi-tenant long-term store for Prometheus and OTLP metrics. Licensing: FiloDB is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0); Grafana Mimir is open source (copyleft) (GNU AGPL v3.0). Grafana Mimir is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than FiloDB (≤ 1 PB). Only FiloDB has secondary indexes, columnar storage, in-memory.

When should I choose FiloDB over Grafana Mimir?

Choose FiloDB for large-scale operational metrics for dashboards and alerting; long-retention Prometheus-compatible storage at high cardinality; and real-time event and application-metric debugging. Choose Grafana Mimir for centralised multi-tenant metrics for many clusters, long-term Prometheus storage on object storage and platform teams offering metrics-as-a-service internally.

Is FiloDB or Grafana Mimir more popular?

Grafana Mimir ranks #203 on the WhichDB Score (15.8/100) and FiloDB ranks #489 (2.2/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are FiloDB and Grafana Mimir open source?

Yes. FiloDB is open source. License: Apache License 2.0. Yes. Grafana Mimir is open source. License: GNU AGPL v3.0.