About SingleStore
SingleStore is a commercial distributed relational database that aims to handle both transactional and analytical queries in one system. Teams use it when they need dashboards, applications or APIs to query large, constantly updating datasets with low latency, rather than moving data into a separate warehouse first.
It speaks SQL and is compatible with the MySQL wire protocol, so many existing drivers and tools can connect to it. Data is spread across nodes so that capacity can grow by adding hardware. SingleStore is offered as a managed cloud service and can also be run as software on your own infrastructure, which makes it an option for organizations with data residency or deployment constraints.
Key features
- Distributed SQL engine that scales across nodes
- Transactions and analytics in one database
- Connectivity through MySQL-compatible drivers
- Low-latency queries on fresh data
- Managed cloud and self-managed deployment options
Good fit for
- →Real-time dashboards over streaming data
- →Customer-facing analytics inside applications
- Tags
- distributed-sql
- database
- real-time-analytics
- htap
- mysql-compatible
- cloud-database
SingleStore: questions and answers
- What is SingleStore used for?
- SingleStore is a distributed SQL database built to run real-time analytics and transactional workloads together, for teams that want fast queries on fresh data. It is a good fit for real-time dashboards over streaming data and customer-facing analytics inside applications.
- Is SingleStore free?
- Yes. SingleStore has a free plan. Free shared workspace for development. Production Helios Cloud is billed by usage starting at $0.99 an hour (Standard) or $1.49 an hour (Enterprise); BYOC is quoted and a self-managed edition exists.
- Is SingleStore open source?
- No. SingleStore is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to SingleStore include TiDB, OceanBase and ClickHouse.
- Can I self-host SingleStore?
- Yes. Although SingleStore is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers, and the vendor also offers a hosted version.
- What are some alternatives to SingleStore?
- SingleStore competes with Snowflake, Google Cloud Spanner and PlanetScale. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source SingleStore alternatives.
Open-source alternatives to SingleStore
See all
TiDB
Databases
TiDB is built for agentic workloads that grow unpredictably, with ACID guarantees and nati
Apache-2.0vs Amazon Aurora★ 41k
OceanBase
Databases
OceanBase is the unified distributed database for the AI era — open-source, multi-model, o
Apache-2.0vs Oracle Database★ 10k
ClickHouse
Databases
ClickHouse is a fast open-source column-oriented database management system that allows ge
Apache-2.0vs Snowflake★ 50k
Apache Doris
Databases
Apache Doris is a real-time analytics and hybrid search database for AI agents.
Apache-2.0vs Snowflake★ 16k
StarRocks
Databases
The world's fastest open query engine for sub-second analytics both on and off the data la
Apache-2.0vs Snowflake★ 12k
CrateDB
Databases
CrateDB is a distributed and scalable SQL database for storing and analyzing massive amoun
Apache-2.0vs SingleStore★ 4.4k
SaaS alternatives to SingleStore
See all
Snowflake
Databases
Cloud data platform for warehousing, data sharing and analytics
SaaS
Google Cloud Spanner
Databases
Google horizontally scalable relational database with strong consistency
SaaS
PlanetScale
Databases
Managed MySQL and Postgres with branching workflows and online schema changes
SaaS
Tinybird
Databases
Real-time analytics database that turns SQL queries into API endpoints
SaaS
Amazon Aurora
Databases
AWS cloud-built relational database compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL
SaaS
MotherDuck
Databases
Managed cloud service for DuckDB analytics
SaaS

