Apache IoTDB vs Cortex
Apache IoTDB
iotdb.apache.orgCortex
cortexmetrics.ioSide by side
| Figure | Apache IoTDB | Cortex |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 0 |
| Spec score · Time-Series Databases | 9.1 (#2) | 7.9 (#18) |
| Security configuration | Java session clients expose SSL, trust-store and RPC-compression settings. | Cortex supports TLS between its components, while authentication and authorization are typically added through a reverse proxy. |
| Support | The project points users to QQ, WeChat, and Slack community channels and a developer mailing list for questions and help. | The project directs users to its CNCF Slack channel, GitHub issues, and the cortex-users mailing list for questions. |
| What it does | Apache IoTDB is an IoT-native time-series database for collecting, storing, managing and analyzing industrial time-series data. | Cortex is a horizontally scalable, highly available, multi-tenant, long-term storage solution for Prometheus and OpenTelemetry metrics. |
Plans
In their own words
Apache IoTDB
Apache IoTDB is an open-source industrial IoT time-series database for collecting, storing, managing, and analyzing device data across edge and cloud deployments. The project describes high-speed writes for millions of networked devices alongside fast reads. Query features include aligning time across devices and sensors, time-series computation, and aggregation by time dimensions. Ingestion options include IoTDB-SQL, JDBC, Java, C++, Python, and Go native APIs, REST, MQTT, CSV, and TsFile. Named analysis ecosystem examples include Hadoop, Spark, Flink, and Grafana. Deployment options include cloud installation, a desktop terminal tool, and synchronization between cloud and on-premise machines. The REST service is disabled by default and uses Basic Authentication except for the health check endpoint. Data and cluster permissions can be managed through users, roles, and privileges. The homepage states disk storage can cost less than $0.23 per GB. The project lists energy, aerospace, transportation, steel, and other IoT scenarios. Its JDBC documentation cautions that insert operations may not provide high-performance writing and recommends the Java Native API for Java applications.