M3DB vs TDengine
No clear leader: TDengine (54.5) and M3DB (50.5) are within the 5-point margin; treat as a tie. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.
Capabilities
Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for time-series databases. “-” means undocumented, not absent.
What each one is
The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.
M3DB
M3 is a distributed time series database built for storing and querying high-volume metrics with multiple query languages. It can be deployed as a single node or multi-node cluster using Docker, Kubernetes, or binaries.
TDengine
Open-source time-series database for real-time processing of high-volume sensor data, supporting distributed deployment and AI-powered analytics.
Pricing
List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.
TDengine
Free tier up to 5,000 tags. Self-hosted annual licenses from $12,500/year, perpetual from $31,250. Managed cloud from $970/month. High availability at +30% of plan cost.
- Free TierFree
- All TSDB and IDMP features
- Official support available separately
- Self-Hosted Annual LicenseFrom $12,500/year (7,500 tags). Pricing scales with deployment size.
- Standard support included
- Product updates and patches
- Self-Hosted Perpetual LicenseFrom $31,250 (7,500 tags). One-time cost, pricing scales with deployment size.
- Perpetual usage rights
- Optional annual support available
- Cloud - Starter$970/month or $11,640/year
- Fully managed on AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Managed infrastructure and operations
- Cloud - Small$1,740/month or $20,880/year
- Cloud - Medium$2,570/month or $30,840/year
- Cloud - Large$3,500/month or $42,000/year
- Cloud - XLarge$5,220/month or $62,640/year
Platform & deployment
Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.
Integrations
What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.
M3DB
- Prometheus
- Graphite
- Kubernetes
- Docker
- InfluxDB
- etcd
TDengine
- Java
- Python
- Go
- MQTT
- Kafka
- OPC
- PI System
- Excel
- Apache Pulsar
- AVEVA Historian
M3DB or TDengine: which one depends on you
A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.
Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works
Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.