# Time series databases for small business buyers: 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 small 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/smb/

**Standing:** TimescaleDB leads with 57% of first choices; verdict clear leader. 53 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| # | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | TimescaleDB | 57% | 6% | 69 |
| 2 | InfluxDB | 11% | 16% | 68 |
| 3 | QuestDB | 6% | 6% | 53 |
| 4 | VictoriaMetrics | 4% | 0% | 32 |
| 5 | PostgreSQL | 4% | 18% | 22 |
| 6 | Prometheus | 2% | 22% | 40 |
| 7 | Amazon Timestream | 2% | 17% | 18 |
| 8 | ClickHouse Cloud | 0% | 34% | 29 |
| 9 | TDengine | 0% | 27% | 11 |

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: InfluxDB, TimescaleDB; alternatives TDengine
- GPT-5.4 mini: PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB; alternatives ClickHouse Cloud, InfluxDB
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: TimescaleDB; alternatives ClickHouse Cloud, InfluxDB, VictoriaMetrics
- Perplexity Sonar: PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB; alternatives InfluxDB, QuestDB
- Grok 4.1 Fast: TimescaleDB; alternatives InfluxDB, Prometheus, QuestDB, VictoriaMetrics
- Mistral Small: TimescaleDB; alternatives PostgreSQL
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: TimescaleDB; alternatives InfluxDB
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: TimescaleDB; alternatives Amazon Timestream, Azure Time Series Insights, InfluxDB, Prometheus
- Kimi K2: TimescaleDB; alternatives ClickHouse Cloud, InfluxDB, PostgreSQL, Prometheus
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: InfluxDB; alternatives Prometheus, TimescaleDB, VictoriaMetrics
- MiniMax M2.5: TimescaleDB; alternatives Amazon Timestream, InfluxDB
- GPT-6 Luna: TimescaleDB; alternatives InfluxDB, PostgreSQL
- Muse Glimmer 30B: Amazon Timestream, TimescaleDB; alternatives 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: 55 answers, 103 citations
- guideflow.com: 51 answers, 52 citations
- questdb.com: 43 answers, 49 citations
- influxdata.com: 34 answers, 63 citations
- us.fitgap.com: 32 answers, 40 citations
- mgsoftware.nl: 28 answers, 28 citations
- sourceforge.net: 24 answers, 35 citations
- g2.com: 20 answers, 32 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://guideflow.com/blog/time-series-database-software (51 answers)
- https://tigerdata.com/learn/the-best-time-series-databases-compared (48 answers)
- https://questdb.com/blog/best-time-series-databases (41 answers)
- https://mgsoftware.nl/en/tools/best-time-series-databases (28 answers)
- https://us.fitgap.com/search/time-series-databases/small-business (24 answers)
- https://tigerdata.com/learn/best-managed-time-series-databases-in-2026 (20 answers)
- https://viasocket.com/discovery/blog/0q7cxp/top-time-series-databases-for-real-time-analytics (18 answers)
- https://clickhouse.com/resources/engineering/what-is-time-series-database (16 answers)
- https://sourceforge.net/software/time-series-databases (16 answers)
- https://tigerdata.com/learn/what-are-open-source-time-series-databases-understanding-your-options (16 answers)

## Warned against

- InfluxDB: 11 of 68 labels negative. "Usage-based pricing starts cheap but escalates quickly with data volume... users report it becoming "hard to justify"" (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt)
- Apache Cassandra: 9 of 9 labels negative. "Highly Distributed/Enterprise TSDBs like Apache Cassandra... overkill ops burden (multi-node clusters, tuning) for SMBs" (Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt)
- ClickHouse Cloud: 10 of 29 labels negative. "Databases to Avoid for Small Businesses

ClickHouse ... operational complexity that grows with scale" (Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt)
- OpenTSDB: 7 of 8 labels negative. "Highly Distributed/Enterprise TSDBs like Apache Cassandra, OpenTSDB, or KairosDB: overkill ops burden" (Grok 4.1 Fast, 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.