GreptimeDB is a distributed, open-source time-series database built for unified observability. It stores and queries metrics, logs, and traces together in a single columnar engine, supporting both SQL and PromQL for analysis. The database is designed as a Kubernetes-native operator with a decoupled compute and storage architecture, enabling horizontal scaling and multi-region deployment.
What distinguishes GreptimeDB is its role as a multi-protocol ingestion gateway, accepting data through OpenTelemetry, Prometheus Remote Write, InfluxDB, Loki, Elasticsearch, Kafka, and MQTT protocols without requiring a predefined schema. It provides a unified observability data model that processes all three signal types as timestamped wide events, allowing JOIN queries across signals. The system includes a continuous aggregation pipeline with an optional Flownode component for streaming and materialized view computations, plus configurable log pipeline processing that parses and transforms raw log lines during ingestion.
The database offers a broad capability surface including automatic schema inference, columnar storage with LSMT, distributed query execution with pushdown, and support for inverted, fulltext, and skipping indexes. It provides multiple query APIs (MySQL, PostgreSQL, HTTP, gRPC, Elasticsearch, Jaeger), BI tool connectivity, and integration with AI assistants through the Model Context Protocol. Deployment options range from standalone binaries to distributed clusters on Kubernetes, with metadata stored in etcd, MySQL, or PostgreSQL.