vs

quasardb vs TimescaleDB

quasardb: Distributed columnar time-series database, now sold as Quasar, for tick, sensor and industrial data. TimescaleDB: PostgreSQL extension adding hypertables, columnar compression and continuous aggregates for time series.

key differences

  • Licensing: quasardb is proprietary (Proprietary (client APIs BSD-licensed)); TimescaleDB is source-available (Apache-2.0 core + Timescale License (TSL) for advanced features).
  • quasardb is built for larger datasets (≤ 1 PB) than TimescaleDB (≤ 10 TB).
  • Horizontal scaling is native in quasardb and none in TimescaleDB.
  • Only quasardb has streaming ingest.
  • Only TimescaleDB has full-text search, vector search, json, triggers, stored procedures.

choose quasardb for

  • +Capital-markets tick and order-book history
  • +Industrial and IoT sensor telemetry
  • +Backtesting and quantitative research over long histories
  • +Edge collection with central analytics

best at · Time-series, Tick data, IoT

choose timescaledb for

  • +IoT and sensor data joined with relational metadata
  • +Financial tick and market data analytics in SQL
  • +Product and application metrics dashboards
  • +Energy and utility metering

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

overview
Primary model
Time-Series
Time-Series
Also supports
Columnar / OLAP, Key-Value
Relational, Columnar / OLAP
Type
Database engine
Extension
Status
Active
Active
Developer
QuasarDB SAS
TigerData (formerly Timescale)
First release
2009
2017
Latest version
3.14.3 (Sep 2026)
2.31.0 (Oct 20, 2026)
License
ProprietaryProprietary (client APIs BSD-licensed)
Source-availableApache-2.0 core + Timescale License (TSL) for advanced features
Free tier
—
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
6.6
47.1
Rank
#359
#34
GitHub stars
–
23.8K
Stack Overflow questions
–
775
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Large (≤ 1 PB)
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
None
Multi-region
None
Read replicas
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong
Strong
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Distributed, Client server
Single node, Primary replica, Client server
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
—
✓
Serverless
—
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
✓
—
Clouds
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
AWS, 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
SQL-like query language with time-series extensions
SQL, PL/pgSQL
Client languages
Python, Java, Go, C#, C, C++
C, Java, Python, JavaScript, Go, Rust, C#, Ruby
Best for
Time-series, Tick data, IoT, Real-time analytics
Time-series, Real-time analytics, IoT, Observability

quasardb vs TimescaleDB: FAQ

What is the difference between quasardb and TimescaleDB?

quasardb: Distributed columnar time-series database, now sold as Quasar, for tick, sensor and industrial data. TimescaleDB: PostgreSQL extension adding hypertables, columnar compression and continuous aggregates for time series. Licensing: quasardb is proprietary (Proprietary (client APIs BSD-licensed)); TimescaleDB is source-available (Apache-2.0 core + Timescale License (TSL) for advanced features). quasardb is built for larger datasets (≤ 1 PB) than TimescaleDB (≤ 10 TB). Horizontal scaling is native in quasardb and none in TimescaleDB.

When should I choose quasardb over TimescaleDB?

Choose quasardb for capital-markets tick and order-book history; industrial and IoT sensor telemetry; and backtesting and quantitative research over long histories. Choose TimescaleDB for IoT and sensor data joined with relational metadata; financial tick and market data analytics in SQL; and product and application metrics dashboards.

Is quasardb or TimescaleDB more popular?

TimescaleDB ranks #34 on the WhichDB Score (47.1/100) and quasardb ranks #359 (6.6/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are quasardb and TimescaleDB open source?

No. quasardb is proprietary, closed-source software. Not in the OSI sense. TimescaleDB is source-available: you can read the code, but the license restricts some uses, typically offering it as a competing managed service. License: Apache-2.0 core + Timescale License (TSL) for advanced features.