FiloDB review
A self-hosted choice for PromQL metrics with Cassandra persistence and Kafka ingestion.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
FiloDB is an open-source, distributed time-series database for real-time operational metrics, events, and tracing workloads. It is designed for teams that need Prometheus-compatible PromQL querying, low-latency dashboards, alerting, metrics debugging, and real-time event queries in a self-hosted environment. The system runs as standalone processes in a cluster, with configurable schemas, tag indexing, horizontal sharding, retention settings, and per-dataset ingestion controls. It is aimed at operational time-series data rather than transactional or OLAP workloads.
Its strongest fit is an ecosystem built around Kafka, Cassandra, and Prometheus-compatible tooling. FiloDB ingests streams through Apache Kafka, supports custom ingestion sources and Influx Line Protocol, and persists data through Cassandra for recovery. Grafana, Telegraf, and Apache Spark are listed integrations, while the Prometheus-compatible HTTP API and command-line interface support established monitoring workflows. First-class histogram storage and querying, columnar compression, and in-memory off-heap storage add depth for metrics-heavy use cases. FiloDB Standalone, Cassandra, and Kafka are listed as stable components.
The trade-off is operational scope. FiloDB is self-hosted, so teams must run and maintain the distributed processes, Kafka path, and Cassandra persistence layer. Its query model centers on PromQL rather than SQL, which makes it less suitable for teams seeking relational analysis or broad OLAP capabilities. Gateway is experimental, and Spark is deprecated, narrowing the appeal of those paths. Choose FiloDB when PromQL, distributed sharding, Kafka ingestion, and Cassandra-backed recovery are central requirements; choose an alternative when managed hosting, SQL support, or a simpler deployment model matters more.
FiloDB pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Distributed sharding supports horizontal scaling across standalone processes
- PromQL, Prometheus HTTP API, CLI, and Grafana support
- Cassandra persistence, Kafka ingestion, retention, and tag indexing
- Where it doesn't
- Self-hosted deployment requires managing the cluster and dependencies
- SQL querying is not supported
- Gateway is experimental and Spark integration is deprecated
FiloDB fact sheet, pricing and score →
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