Thread by @acoustik, These TimescaleDB vs. Amazon Timestream benchmarks from @ryanbooz are just shocking (and [...]

These TimescaleDB vs. Amazon Timestream benchmarks from @ryanbooz are just shocking (and are currently #1 on Hacker News).

In fact, we didn't believe them at first, but he kept at it and couldn't find a way to make Timestream work.

1/ https://twitter.com/ryanbooz/status/1334234417552891904

https://twitter.com/ryanbooz/status/1334234417552891904

The reality is that Amazon Timestream, despite taking 2 years post-announcement to launch, still seems half-baked.

But why, and what does this mean for open-source companies?

2/

One answer: Amazon Timestream’s underlying architecture just isn’t built for operational database workloads.

But let's dig deeper and compare the two companies building these products, @TimescaleDB and Amazon. 3/

Building a high-performance, cost-effective, reliable, and easy-to-use time-series database is a hard and mission-critical problem. 4/

The viability of our company, Timescale, is 100% dependent on the quality of TimescaleDB.

If we build a sub-par product, we cease to exist.

Amazon Timestream is just another of the 200+ services that Amazon is developing.

5/

For us, building TimescaleDB into a best-in-class developer experience is an existential requirement. Without it, we cease to exist.

For them, Amazon Timestream is just a checkbox, another service for them to sell in their giant data center warehouses.

6/

But if Amazon wanted to launch a time-series database service that supported SQL, why did they build one from scratch, and not just offer managed TimescaleDB? 7/

Answer: our innovative licensing.

The core of TimescaleDB is open-source, licensed under Apache 2. But advanced capabilities, such as compression and multi-node, are licensed under the Timescale License.

8/

The Timescale License is a source-available license that’s open-source in spirit and makes all software available for free – but contains a critical restriction: preventing companies from offering that software via a hosted database-as-a-service.

9/

It is an example of a “Cloud Protection License”, which are licenses that recognize that the cloud has become the dominant form of open-source commercialization.

So these licenses protect the right of offering the software in the cloud for the main creator of the project.

10/

(

More on “Cloud Protection Licenses” and how we're building a self-sustaining open-source business in the cloud era here: https://blog.timescale.com/blog/building-open-source-business-in-cloud-era-v2/)

11/

Building a self-sustaining open-source business in the cloud era

Learn how we are making all of our features available for free and updating our software license to provide more rights to users.

https://blog.timescale.com/blog/building-open-source-business-in-cloud-era-v2/

“Cloud protection” prevents Amazon from just distributing our R&D – and forces them to develop their own offering & compete on product quality, not just distribution

.

As we can see from Timestream, building a best-in-class database is not easy, even for Amazon.

12/

The truth is that, when Amazon is forced to compete on product quality, all open-source companies have a shot at building great businesses.

13/

All that said, we welcome Amazon’s new entry to the time-series database market, and appreciate that developers now have even more choice for storing and analyzing their time-series data