My journey making QuestDB

QuestDB is an open-source time-series database designed for high-demand workloads, offering ultra-low latency and high ingestion throughput, making it suitable for applications like trading floors and mission control. The database supports Parquet and SQL, ensuring data portability and AI readiness without vendor lock-in. The founder's experience began in 2012 while working at an energy trading company, where he discovered the limitations of existing databases and explored memory-mapping techniques in Java. This led to the creation of a custom storage engine that used off-heap memory and a query system for geospatial time series. Over the years, the founder left his job to focus on developing QuestDB full-time, emphasizing performance optimization and avoiding garbage collection by rewriting standard libraries. Despite initial setbacks due to design flaws, a complete rewrite improved the database's performance and capabilities, enabling atomic and durable multi-column commits and optimized CPU use. The project gained traction as contributors joined, further advancing QuestDB's development and expanding its user base.