SingleStore
SingleStore is a commercial distributed SQL database that runs transactional and analytical workloads in one engine, combining rowstore and columnstore tables with vector search, and delivered as the managed Helios service or self-managed.
LicenseCommercial
DeploymentManagedSelf-hostedHybrid
PricingFreeSubscription
Operational complexityMedium
WorkloadInteractiveStreaming
Use it when
- The application's writes and the dashboard's reads must be the same rows, with no pipeline, lag, or second copy.
- Point lookups and analytical scans share one system: in-memory rowstore and columnstore tables join in a single query.
- MySQL compatibility matters, with a MongoDB-compatible API (Kai) alongside, easing driver and tool reuse.
- Vector search belongs beside the SQL rather than in a separate store.
Think twice when
- Sizing one system for both workloads is the cost concern it sounds like; separate specialized stores can be cheaper at scale.
- Pre-aggregation is central to serving; there are no materialized views, so rollup tables are yours to maintain.
- The job is purely analytical scanning at lake scale; a warehouse or ClickHouse is the simpler fit, and there is no open-source edition (commercial, with a free shared tier).
How it runs
Aggregators route queries across leaf nodes holding shards. Deploy self-managed from bare metal to Kubernetes, or use Helios, the managed service on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, where compute separates from object storage. Pricing is credit-based per compute hour; pipelines ingest from Kafka, S3, and CDC sources.
Details
CompareHow SingleStore answers the questions OLAP Engines turns on.
OLAP Engines
| How it works | |
| Specialization | HTAP: one engine for transactions, analytics and vector search |
| SQL dialect | MySQL-compatible; MongoDB wire protocol via Kai |
| Joins | Full distributed joins, across row and column stores |
| Updates and deletes | Full transactional INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE |
| Ingest to queryable | Immediate on commit; pipeline ingest tuned by batch interval |
| Storage format | Rowstore and Universal Storage columnstore; Iceberg ingest |
| Compute and storage | Aggregators and leaves; Helios separates compute from object storage |
| Indexes | Rowstore skiplist; hash on both; columnstore sort key, fulltext, vector |
| Pre-aggregation | None: no materialized views; projections re-sort, not aggregate |
| Running it | |
| Concurrent users | High: workload manager queues by cost; add aggregators to scale |
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