BTrDB vs Cortex
BTrDB
btrdb.readthedocs.ioCortex
cortexmetrics.ioSide by side
| Figure | BTrDB | Cortex |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Time-Series Databases | 8.8 (#3) | 7.9 (#18) |
| License | The BTrDB server repository identifies its license as MIT. | Cortex is an open-source project licensed under Apache License 2.0. |
| Support | The documentation invites users to submit pull requests or open a GitHub issue for additions or corrections. | The project directs users to its CNCF Slack channel, GitHub issues, and the cortex-users mailing list for questions. |
Plans
In their own words
BTrDB
BTrDB is a free, MIT-licensed, self-hosted time-series database for dense, high-precision univariate data. It partitions data by time, supports clustered deployments, and records stream changes as new versions that queries can target. Streams have unique UUIDs and can be grouped into collections with tags and annotations. The Python btrdb package supports nanosecond-timestamp queries and insertion through Stream.insert, PyArrow tables, or pandas DataFrames. Statistical queries can return minimum, maximum, mean, count, and standard deviation without reading every underlying point. StreamSets can be filtered and converted to pandas DataFrames or CSV files. Documentation shows Dash and Plotly visualization, Ray-worker serialization, TLS on port 4411, and API-key authentication requiring that TLS port. Arrow-based tabular methods are documented for commercial customers with Arrow-enabled servers. BTrDB reports measured cluster throughput and compression figures, and describes smart-grid aggregation at city or country scale as one target use case.