README.md
replacing Prometheus, Loki, and Elasticsearch</h2>
<div align="center"> <h3 align="center"> <a href="https://docs.greptime.com/user-guide/overview/">User Guide</a> | <a href="https://greptimedb.rs/">API Docs</a> | <a href="https://github.com/GreptimeTeam/greptimedb/issues/7685">Roadmap 2026</a> </h3> <a href="https://github.com/GreptimeTeam/greptimedb/releases/latest"> </a> <a href="https://github.com/GreptimeTeam/greptimedb/releases/latest"> </a> <a href="https://hub.docker.com/r/greptime/greptimedb/"> </a> <a href="https://github.com/GreptimeTeam/greptimedb/actions/workflows/develop.yml"> </a> <a href="https://codecov.io/gh/GreptimeTeam/greptimedb"> </a> <a href="https://github.com/GreptimeTeam/greptimedb/blob/main/LICENSE"> </a> <a href="https://greptime.com/slack"> </a> <a href="https://twitter.com/greptime"> </a> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/greptime/"> </a> </div>The unified OpenTelemetry backend — with SQL + PromQL on object storage.
GreptimeDB is an open-source observability database built for Observability 2.0 — treating metrics, logs, and traces as one unified data model (wide events) instead of three separate pillars.
Use it as the single OpenTelemetry backend — replacing Prometheus, Loki, and Elasticsearch with one database built on object storage. Query with SQL and PromQL, scale without pain, cut costs up to 50×.
A quick overview of what GreptimeDB ingests, how it connects to other systems, and what its distributed engine lets you do.
<p align="center"> <a href="https://github.com/GreptimeTeam/greptimedb/raw/main/docs/overview.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> </a> </p>| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Observability 2.0 native | Logs, metrics, and traces in one engine with SQL + PromQL. Native OpenTelemetry, Prometheus remote write, and Jaeger. Migrate one signal at a time, or use as a single backend. |
| Elastic compute-storage separation | Scale reads independently with horizontal replicas. Serve high-concurrency workloads from dashboards, alerting, and AI agents — without resharding or data migration. |
| Sub-second on PB–EB-scale data | Columnar engine with fulltext, inverted, and skipping indexes. Written in Rust. Designed for high-concurrency point queries, not just analytical scans. |
| 50× lower cost | Object storage (S3, GCS, Azure Blob) as primary storage, with a tiered cache (memory + local disk) to keep writes and queries fast. |
Perfect for:
Why Observability 2.0? Three separate databases for metrics, logs, and traces means three storage layers, three query languages, and three sets of dashboards. GreptimeDB stores all three as timestamped wide events in one columnar engine — JOIN across signals in SQL, run one stack instead of three, and ingest AI agent telemetry the same way. Read more: Observability 2.0 and the Database for It.
Learn more in Why GreptimeDB.
| Capability | GreptimeDB | Prometheus / Thanos / Mimir | Grafana Loki | Elasticsearch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data types | Metrics, logs, traces | Metrics only | Logs only | Logs, traces |
| Query language | SQL + PromQL | PromQL | LogQL | Query DSL |
| Storage | Native object storage (S3, etc.) | Local disk + object storage (Thanos/Mimir) | Object storage (chunks) | Local disk |
| Scaling | Compute-storage separation, stateless nodes | Federation / Thanos / Mimir — multi-component, ops heavy | Stateless + object storage | Shard-based, ops heavy |
| Cost efficiency | Up to 50× lower storage cost | High at scale | Moderate | High (inverted index overhead) |
| OpenTelemetry | Native (metrics + logs + traces) | Partial (metrics only) | Partial (logs only) | Via instrumentation |
Benchmarks:
GreptimeDB can run in two modes:
For deeper coverage, see the architecture doc or DeepWiki.
<a href="https://github.com/GreptimeTeam/greptimedb/raw/main/docs/architecture.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> </a>For AI agents — paste this prompt into your agent:
Read https://docs.greptime.com/SKILL.md and follow the instructions
to deploy, configure, ingest, and query GreptimeDB.
docker run -p 127.0.0.1:4000-4003:4000-4003 \
-v "$(pwd)/greptimedb_data:/greptimedb_data" \
--name greptime --rm \
greptime/greptimedb:latest standalone start \
--http-addr 0.0.0.0:4000 \
--rpc-bind-addr 0.0.0.0:4001 \
--mysql-addr 0.0.0.0:4002 \
--postgres-addr 0.0.0.0:4003
Dashboard: http://localhost:4000/dashboard
Read more in the full Install Guide.
Troubleshooting:
4000, 4001, 4002, and 4003 are not blocked by a firewall or used by other services.docker logs greptime for further details.Prerequisites:
rust-toolchain.tomlgcc / g++ / autoconf and the glibc dev package (libc6-dev on Ubuntu, glibc-devel on Fedora)Build and run:
make # build greptime binary
cargo run -- standalone start # start in standalone mode
Common dev commands:
make fmt # format Rust code
make clippy # lint (fails on warnings)
make test # unit + integration tests (uses cargo-nextest)
make sqlness-test # SQL regression tests
See the Contribution Guidelines for the full developer workflow.
GreptimeDB is at v1.0 GA with stable APIs and regular releases. It runs in production at scale — OceanBase Cloud operates 80+ GreptimeDB clusters managing 300 TB of logs, cutting log storage cost by 60% after migrating from Grafana Loki. See more in case studies.
Read the v1.0 highlights and 2026 roadmap, or browse the version reference.
If GreptimeDB is useful to you, please star the repo.
We invite you to engage and contribute!
GreptimeDB is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.
Running GreptimeDB in your organization? We offer enterprise add-ons, services, training, and consulting. Contact us for details.
Special thanks to all contributors! See AUTHOR.md.
All trademarks, logos, and brand names referenced in this README and in the Overview diagram are the property of their respective owners. Their use is for identification purposes only and does not imply endorsement or affiliation.