# StarRocks

> MPP OLAP engine with real-time ingest and query-time joins

StarRocks is an open-source MPP OLAP database combining streaming ingest, strong join performance at query time, and direct querying of lakehouse table formats.

Website: https://www.starrocks.io

## Use it when

- The serving layer genuinely needs query-time joins against dimension tables; the cost-based optimizer makes denormalization optional rather than mandatory.
- One engine should serve seconds-fresh tables and accelerate Iceberg, Delta, Hudi, Hive, and Paimon lake data without copying it.
- Real-time UPDATE and DELETE on a primary key are required over streaming ingest.
- MySQL-compatible SQL keeps existing BI tools connected.

## Think twice when

- You are also weighing Apache Doris; the projects share ancestry but have diverged substantially, so benchmark rather than inherit the choice.
- Denormalized slice-and-dice at extreme per-user query rates is the whole job; Pinot's index toolbox targets that directly.
- FE and BE (or compute node) groups are yours to operate; CelerData is the managed path.

## How it runs

Front ends plan and coordinate; back ends store columnar data and execute. The 3.0 shared-data mode runs stateless compute nodes over object storage with local cache. Stream Load and Routine Load commit transactionally from Kafka; async materialized views with query rewrite carry the pre-aggregation. CelerData offers cloud and BYOC deployments.

## Details

### General

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| License | Open source (permissive) |
| SPDX identifier | Apache-2.0 |
| Deployment | Self-hosted, Managed, Hybrid |
| Workload | Interactive, Streaming |
| Operational complexity | Medium |
| Pricing | Free, Subscription |
| Language | Java, C++ |
| Repository | https://github.com/StarRocks/starrocks |
| Documentation | https://docs.starrocks.io |
| Stars | 12.1k |

### OLAP Engines

| Attribute | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Specialization | Real-time OLAP with lakehouse query federation |
| SQL dialect | MySQL-compatible |
| Joins | Query-time joins, cost-based optimizer |
| Updates and deletes | Primary Key model; real-time UPDATE and DELETE |
| Ingest to queryable | Seconds: Stream Load and Routine Load commit transactionally |
| Storage format | Own columnar; reads Iceberg, Hive, Hudi, Delta, Paimon; writes Hive, Iceberg |
| Compute and storage | FE and BE nodes; 3.0 shared-data mode adds CNs over object storage |
| Indexes | Prefix and ZoneMap built in; bitmap, Bloom, N-gram, GIN optional |
| Pre-aggregation | Aggregate tables; sync rollups and async MVs with query rewrite |
| Concurrent users | High: query cache and resource groups for concurrent workloads |

## Capabilities

- [OLAP Engines](https://matca.io/capabilities/olap-engine)

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Source: https://matca.io/starrocks
Last updated: 2026-08-31T11:40:47.850Z