QuestDB pricing guide details
Pricing Overview
QuestDB is an open-source time-series database licensed under Apache 2.0, which means the core product is completely free to self-host. There are no per-node fees, no ingestion caps, and no query-rate limits baked into the open-source edition. We think this is one of the most generous licensing models in the time-series database space, especially for a product that can ingest 8 million rows per second on a single server with SIMD-accelerated SQL queries.
The catch, if you want to call it that, is that production-grade features live behind QuestDB Enterprise. Enterprise adds high availability with automatic failover across multiple availability zones, SSO/RBAC with full audit logs, multi-tier storage with storage/compute separation, and SLA-backed support directly from QuestDB's creators. Enterprise pricing is not published anywhere on their site; you need to book a demo and negotiate directly with the QuestDB sales team. We reached out and confirmed there is no self-serve pricing page or published rate card.
This two-tier structure is common across infrastructure databases: free to build and test with full functionality, pay when you need resilience, governance, and hands-on support at production scale.
QuestDB Enterprise is available self-managed or through Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC), with deployment on-premises or in cloud infrastructure. The published BYOC offer supports AWS and Azure.
Plan Comparison
| Feature | QuestDB Open Source | QuestDB Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| License | Apache 2.0 | Commercial (contact sales) |
| Price | Free | Custom pricing |
| Deployment | Self-hosted | Cloud, on-prem, hybrid, or BYOC |
| Ingestion throughput | Up to 8M rows/sec | Up to 8M rows/sec |
| SQL support | Full SQL with time-series extensions | Full SQL with time-series extensions |
| Postgres protocol (PGwire) | Yes | Yes |
| REST API | Yes | Yes |
| Materialized views | Yes | Yes |
| ASOF JOIN / SAMPLE BY | Yes | Yes |
| N-dimensional arrays | Yes | Yes |
| Column-oriented storage | Yes | Yes |
| Write-ahead logging (WAL) | Yes | Yes |
| High availability | No | Replication and auto failover, Multi-AZ |
| Access control (SSO/RBAC) | No | TLS, SSO (OAuth 2.0/OIDC), RBAC, audit logs |
| Tiered storage | No | Auto-tiering: Hot to Cold (Parquet/object storage) |
| Unified query across tiers | No | SQL spans hot and cold partitions + Parquet |
| Expert support | Community only | SLA-backed; architecture and performance reviews |
| Uptime SLA | None | 99.9% |
The open-source edition covers every query feature and storage format QuestDB offers, including materialized views, ASOF JOINs, multi-dimensional arrays, and the full WAL-based ingestion pipeline. Enterprise wraps those capabilities in the operational layer that production workloads demand: automatic failover, security controls, tiered storage to object stores like S3 and Azure Blob, and direct access to QuestDB engineers for architecture reviews.
We see this split as clean and honest. You are not paying to unlock SQL features or remove artificial row limits. You are paying for the infrastructure guarantees and compliance controls that regulated industries and high-availability workloads require. For teams running QuestDB in development or internal analytics, the open-source edition is fully capable on its own.
Hidden Costs and Considerations
Self-hosting the open-source edition is free in license terms, but not in infrastructure. You will need to budget for compute, storage, and networking costs on your cloud provider of choice, plus the internal engineering time to handle version upgrades, backups, monitoring, and incident response. There is no managed cloud offering at a published price point, so teams without dedicated infrastructure staff should carefully factor in the operational burden before choosing self-hosted over a managed competitor. Enterprise's BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) model means you still own the full infrastructure bill; QuestDB layers their software, support, and SLA guarantees on top of your existing cloud spend.
How QuestDB Pricing Compares
| Database | Free Tier | Paid Starting Price | Pricing Model | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QuestDB | Full open-source (Apache 2.0) | Custom (contact sales) | Open Source + Enterprise | High-throughput time-series workloads |
| InfluxDB | Community Edition (self-hosted) | $250/mo | Open Source + Cloud | General-purpose time-series monitoring |
| Neo4j | AuraDB Free / Community Edition | $65/GB/month (AuraDB Professional) | Freemium | Graph-based relationship queries |
| MotherDuck | Free tier (1 user) | $25/mo (Pro) | Freemium | Serverless analytical queries (DuckDB) |
QuestDB stands apart because its open-source edition ships every query feature without artificial limits or feature gating. InfluxDB's free Community Edition is also self-hosted, but its managed cloud product starts at $250/mo, making it significantly more expensive for teams that want to avoid operational overhead. Neo4j serves a different workload entirely (graph queries rather than time-series) but shares the same category on our site; its AuraDB Professional tier starts at $65/GB/month with a limited free tier available. MotherDuck offers the lowest paid entry point at $25/mo for its Pro plan and $49/mo for Team, but it targets serverless analytical workloads built on DuckDB rather than high-frequency time-series ingestion.
The real comparison point for most teams is total cost of ownership. QuestDB's open-source edition can match or exceed the raw throughput of paid competitors, but you trade a subscription fee for infrastructure management time and operational responsibility. Enterprise closes that gap with production-grade support, security features, and tiered storage automation. The trade-off is that you cannot self-serve a price quote; every Enterprise deal requires a conversation with QuestDB's sales team, which adds friction for teams that prefer transparent, published pricing.