RRDtool
Ranked 5 of 6 time series databases by recommenders
People recommend RRDtool for simple, self-hosted time-series storage and graphing, and say it is still relevant. Critics cite its performance and limited feature set.
People recommend RRDtool for simple, self-hosted time-series storage and graphing, and say it is still relevant. Critics cite its performance and limited feature set.
7 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Simple self-hosted monitoring and graphing
“rrdtool conbined with graphite was powerful back then when metrics and logging was selfhosted”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Kula – Lightweight, self-contained Linux server monitoring tool” “I yearn for the simplicity of rrdtool and Cacti and all that.”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Flawed routers flood University of Wisconsin internet time server (2003)” Still relevant and useful today
“I use rrdtool to this day, as a building block”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Kula – Lightweight, self-contained Linux server monitoring tool” “can also look at the good ol' RRDtool”
Comment from 17 May 2026 in “NanoTDB – Golang Append-Only Time Series DB” “Oh rrdtool is still relevant today.”
Comment from 7 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Kula – Lightweight, self-contained Linux server monitoring tool” - Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Kula – Lightweight, self-contained Linux server monitoring tool”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Performance and feature set complaints
“I was unhappy recently with performance and feature set in RRDTool.”
Comment from 4 Oct 2026 in “Why don't more developers “use the platform”?” “instead of a larger time span taking ~5 seconds to update”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “DuckDB Internals: Why Is DuckDB Fast? (Part 1)”
Other time series databases people recommend
The four most recommended other time series databases, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VictoriaMetrics | 26 | 2 | 93% | 12 | — | Approved |
| TimescaleDB | 21 | 11 | 66% | 7 | — | — |
| Grafana Mimir | 12 | 6 | 67% | 5 | — | Approved |
| kdb+ by KX | 9 | 8 | 53% | 7 | — | — |
| RRDtoolThis page | 6 | 1 | 86% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
All 8 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I was unhappy recently with performance and feature set in RRDTool.”
“I yearn for the simplicity of rrdtool and Cacti and all that.”
“instead of a larger time span taking ~5 seconds to update”
“can also look at the good ol' RRDtool”
“Rrdtool is very useful still.”
“Oh rrdtool is still relevant today.”
“rrdtool conbined with graphite was powerful back then when metrics and logging was selfhosted”
“I use rrdtool to this day, as a building block”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.