New open-source benchmark for real-time analytics applications

Summary

RTABench A Benchmark for Real-Time Analytics Applications rtabench.com Motivation Choosing the right database for analytics is hard: there are many options, each optimized for different use cases. Benchmarks can help, but only if they reflect your actual workload. Common analytics benchmarks tend to represent analytics workloads as: Store all data in a single, wide, denormalized table. Run full-table scans or large aggregations across long time periods. Are optimized for ad-hoc, exploratory queries rather than pre-defined application queries. This approach works well for batch processing and historical analysis, but real-time analytics inside applications requires a different perspective. Instead of analyzing large datasets retrospectively, applications generate fast, targeted insights on fresh data for specific users, devices, or transactions. This leads to three key differences: Queries require joining multiple tables instead of using a single denormalized table. Queries are often highly selective, filtering on specific objects and time windows. Pre-aggregated views are very often used for instant responses. That is why we designed RTABench, to provide a benchmark that accurately reflects real-time analytics inside applications, with a normalized schema, realistic dataset sizes, and queries that match real-world usage patterns. Overview RTABench uses the Clickbench framework for benchmarking, but it introduces a new dataset and query set that better represents real-time analytics inside applications. All tools, datasets, and benchmark results are available on GitHub, where we welcome contributions for expanding RTABench to support additional databases and optimizations. Like any benchmark, RTABench results should not be viewed as a ranking of databases, but rather as a guide to understanding which system aligns best with your real-time analytics needs. Dataset Schema A Normalized Data Model That Reflects Real Applications RTABench is based on an application that t...