# Time series databases: what AI models recommend, October 2026 IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition. Asked as "time series database" and as "database for metrics and sensor data", six framings each, to fourteen models with search on, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. Added to the October 2026 Edition on October 4, 2026; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b-run3), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/it-data/time-series-databases/ **Standing:** TimescaleDB leads with 63% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 51 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts. ## First-choice share | # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels | |---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | TimescaleDB | 63% | 3% | 70 | | 2 | InfluxDB | 16% | 19% | 70 | | 3 | VictoriaMetrics | 8% | 2% | 40 | | 4 | QuestDB | 4% | 4% | 57 | | 5 | Prometheus | 2% | 19% | 43 | | 6 | PostgreSQL | 2% | 58% | 12 | | 7 | ClickHouse Cloud | 0% | 5% | 41 | | 8 | Amazon Timestream | 0% | 17% | 18 | | 9 | TDengine | 0% | 23% | 13 | ## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt - Claude Haiku 4.5: InfluxDB, TimescaleDB; alternatives Prometheus - GPT-5.4 mini: TimescaleDB; alternatives ClickHouse Cloud, InfluxDB, QuestDB - Gemini 3.5 Flash: TimescaleDB; alternatives ClickHouse Cloud, InfluxDB - Perplexity Sonar: TimescaleDB; alternatives Amazon Timestream, InfluxDB, QuestDB - Grok 4.1 Fast: InfluxDB; alternatives ClickHouse Cloud, TimescaleDB - Mistral Small: TimescaleDB; alternatives InfluxDB, QuestDB - DeepSeek V4 Flash: TimescaleDB; alternatives ClickHouse Cloud, InfluxDB, QuestDB - Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice - Qwen 3.7 Flash: TimescaleDB; alternatives InfluxDB, QuestDB - Kimi K2: TimescaleDB; alternatives InfluxDB, QuestDB - GLM 4.7 FlashX: TimescaleDB; alternatives ClickHouse Cloud, QuestDB - MiniMax M2.5: InfluxDB, TimescaleDB; alternatives Amazon Timestream, QuestDB - GPT-6 Luna: TimescaleDB; alternatives ClickHouse Cloud, InfluxDB, Prometheus - Muse Glimmer 30B: TimescaleDB; alternatives InfluxDB, QuestDB ## Sources the answers cite 72 of 84 answers came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models. Sites named in the most answers: - tigerdata.com: 56 answers, 112 citations - guideflow.com: 53 answers, 53 citations - questdb.com: 43 answers, 54 citations - influxdata.com: 38 answers, 58 citations - viasocket.com: 29 answers, 31 citations - mgsoftware.nl: 29 answers, 29 citations - clickhouse.com: 22 answers, 23 citations - sourceforge.net: 17 answers, 19 citations Pages named in the most answers: - https://guideflow.com/blog/time-series-database-software (53 answers) - https://tigerdata.com/learn/the-best-time-series-databases-compared (49 answers) - https://questdb.com/blog/best-time-series-databases (37 answers) - https://mgsoftware.nl/en/tools/best-time-series-databases (29 answers) - https://viasocket.com/discovery/blog/0q7cxp/top-time-series-databases-for-real-time-analytics (27 answers) - https://tigerdata.com/learn/best-managed-time-series-databases-in-2026 (21 answers) - https://clickhouse.com/resources/engineering/what-is-time-series-database (18 answers) - https://influxdata.com/comparison (13 answers) - https://cratedb.com/blog/best-time-series-databases (12 answers) - https://tigerdata.com/learn/how-to-choose-an-iot-database (11 answers) ## Warned against - InfluxDB: 13 of 70 labels negative. "Older versions (v1) reached end-of-life years ago, with no security patches or support—avoid for new projects." (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt) - OpenTSDB: 8 of 9 labels negative. "it's outdated (last major updates ~2010s), hard to operate at scale ... When to skip: Anything but massive, distributed legacy setups" (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt) - Prometheus: 8 of 43 labels negative. "Prometheus local storage as your only durable, highly available store. ... its local TSDB isn't clustered or replicated." (GPT-6 Luna, negative prompt) - MySQL: 6 of 6 labels negative. "standard relational databases like MySQL, SQL Server, or PostgreSQL can handle small-scale time series data, they are not optimized for large volumes" (Mistral Small, negative prompt) ## Record - Method: https://it-ai-index.com/methodology/ - Raw judge labels and full responses: https://it-ai-index.com/data/ - License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as IT AI Recommendation Index, October 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.