# TimescaleDB

21 Hacker News commenters recommended TimescaleDB and 11 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Postgres extension for time-series data, praised for compression and continuous aggregates. Main caveat: its license limits compression, and some features need the vendor's cloud.

## Why people recommend it

- Performs well on time-series workloads (4 comments): "a very popular and performant time series database provided as a Postgres extension" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46908817)) "can take you pretty far for metrics and would be Good Enough for almost all users" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48315026)) "I think Timescale performs quite well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256652))
- Fast, effective compression (3 comments): "I really achieved this compression on real database where I have devices via MQTT connected." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48547251)) "I use TimescaleDB which is fast with the compression." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47497696)) "which is fast with the compression" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47497619))
- Simple Postgres extension, familiar SQL (3 comments): "TimescaleDB is an extension to PostgreSQL, so there's a lot of information, guides, and community support online" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48551782)) "The developer experience is good and it is very convenient to be able to JOIN against your hypertables." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599810)) "just add an extension and you're good to go" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46907988))
- Continuous aggregates save work (2 comments): "it can also update the materialized views when you update/delete old raw data" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49367949)) "continuous aggregates have been a huge boon" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47304321))

## What people warn about

- Licensing limits compression and support (4 comments): "We can't offer Timescale because of the license (except for the version without compression), which blocks some potential customers from using us." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48557789)) "timescaledb's licensing (and therefore its lack of good support in azure managed postgres) is a bummer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48806783)) "Compression uses a different license than Apache." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48547786))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [VictoriaMetrics](https://hackerapproved.com/p/victoriametrics.md): 26 recommend
- [Grafana Mimir](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mimir.md): 12 recommend
- [kdb+ by KX](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kdb-plus.md): 9 recommend
- [RRDtool](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rrdtool.md): 6 recommend
- [InfluxDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/influxdb.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "TimescaleDB", https://hackerapproved.com/p/timescaledb/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).