in [source code](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics). Just download VictoriaMetrics and see [how to start it](#how-to-start-victoriametrics).
* Supports [Prometheus querying API](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/querying/api/), so it can be used as Prometheus drop-in replacement in Grafana.
* Supports global query view. Multiple Prometheus instances may write data into VictoriaMetrics. Later this data may be used in a single query.
* High performance and good scalability for both [inserts](https://medium.com/@valyala/high-cardinality-tsdb-benchmarks-victoriametrics-vs-timescaledb-vs-influxdb-13e6ee64dd6b)
and [selects](https://medium.com/@valyala/when-size-matters-benchmarking-victoriametrics-vs-timescale-and-influxdb-6035811952d4).
[Outperforms InfluxDB and TimescaleDB by up to 20x](https://medium.com/@valyala/measuring-vertical-scalability-for-time-series-databases-in-google-cloud-92550d78d8ae).
* [Uses 10x less RAM than InfluxDB](https://medium.com/@valyala/insert-benchmarks-with-inch-influxdb-vs-victoriametrics-e31a41ae2893) when working with millions of unique time series (aka high cardinality).
* Optimized for time series with high churn rate. Think about [prometheus-operator](https://github.com/coreos/prometheus-operator) metrics from frequent deployments in Kubernetes.
* High data compression, so [up to 70x more data points](https://medium.com/@valyala/when-size-matters-benchmarking-victoriametrics-vs-timescale-and-influxdb-6035811952d4)
may be crammed into limited storage comparing to TimescaleDB.
* Optimized for storage with high-latency IO and low IOPS (HDD and network storage in AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc). See [graphs from these benchmarks](https://medium.com/@valyala/high-cardinality-tsdb-benchmarks-victoriametrics-vs-timescaledb-vs-influxdb-13e6ee64dd6b).
* A single-node VictoriaMetrics may substitute moderately sized clusters built with competing solutions such as Thanos, M3DB, Cortex, InfluxDB or TimescaleDB.
See [vertical scalability benchmarks](https://medium.com/@valyala/measuring-vertical-scalability-for-time-series-databases-in-google-cloud-92550d78d8ae),
[comparing Thanos to VictoriaMetrics cluster](https://medium.com/@valyala/comparing-thanos-to-victoriametrics-cluster-b193bea1683)
and [Remote Write Storage Wars](https://promcon.io/2019-munich/talks/remote-write-storage-wars/) talk
from [PromCon 2019](https://promcon.io/2019-munich/talks/remote-write-storage-wars/).
* VictoriaMetrics consists of a single [small executable](https://medium.com/@valyala/stripping-dependency-bloat-in-victoriametrics-docker-image-983fb5912b0d) without external dependencies.
* All the configuration is done via explicit command-line flags with reasonable defaults.
* All the data is stored in a single directory pointed by `-storageDataPath` flag.
* Easy and fast backups from [instant snapshots](https://medium.com/@valyala/how-victoriametrics-makes-instant-snapshots-for-multi-terabyte-time-series-data-e1f3fb0e0282)
to S3 or GCS with [vmbackup](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/blob/master/app/vmbackup/README.md) / [vmrestore](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/blob/master/app/vmrestore/README.md).
See [this article](https://medium.com/@valyala/speeding-up-backups-for-big-time-series-databases-533c1a927883) for more details.
* Storage is protected from corruption on unclean shutdown (i.e. OOM, hardware reset or `kill -9`) thanks to [the storage architecture](https://medium.com/@valyala/how-victoriametrics-makes-instant-snapshots-for-multi-terabyte-time-series-data-e1f3fb0e0282).
* Supports metrics' scraping, ingestion and [backfilling](#backfilling) via the following protocols:
* [Metrics from Prometheus exporters](https://github.com/prometheus/docs/blob/master/content/docs/instrumenting/exposition_formats.md#text-based-format)
such as [node_exporter](https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter). See [these docs](#how-to-scrape-prometheus-exporters-such-as-node-exporter) for details.
* Ideally works with big amounts of time series data from Kubernetes, IoT sensors, connected cars, industrial telemetry, financial data and various Enterprise workloads.
* Has open source [cluster version](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/tree/cluster).
Just start VictoriaMetrics [executable](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/releases)
or [docker image](https://hub.docker.com/r/victoriametrics/victoria-metrics/) with the desired command-line flags.
The following command-line flags are used the most:
*`-storageDataPath` - path to data directory. VictoriaMetrics stores all the data in this directory. Default path is `victoria-metrics-data` in current working directory.
*`-retentionPeriod` - retention period in months for the data. Older data is automatically deleted. Default period is 1 month.
*`-httpListenAddr` - TCP address to listen to for http requests. By default, it listens port `8428` on all the network interfaces.
Pass `-help` to see all the available flags with description and default values.
It is recommended setting up [monitoring](#monitoring) for VictoriaMetrics.
Each flag values can be set thru environment variables by following these rules:
* The `-envflag.enable` flag must be set
* Each `.` in flag names must be substituted by `_` (for example `-insert.maxQueueDuration <duration>` will translate to `insert_maxQueueDuration=<duration>`)
* For repeating flags, an alternative syntax can be used by joining the different values into one using `,` as separator (for example `-storageNode <nodeA> -storageNode <nodeB>` will translate to `storageNode=<nodeA>,<nodeB>`)
* It is possible setting prefix for environment vars with `-envflag.prefix`. For instance, if `-envflag.prefix=VM_`, then env vars must be prepended with `VM_`
### How to scrape Prometheus exporters such as [node-exporter](https://github.com/prometheus/node_exporter)
VictoriaMetrics can be used as drop-in replacement for Prometheus for scraping targets configured in `prometheus.yml` config file according to [the specification](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#configuration-file).
Just set `-promscrape.config` command-line flag to the path to `prometheus.yml` config - and VictoriaMetrics should start scraping the configured targets.
Currently the following [scrape_config](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/configuration/#scrape_config) types are supported:
See also [vmagent](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/blob/master/app/vmagent/README.md), which can be used as drop-in replacement for Prometheus.
### How to send data from InfluxDB-compatible agents such as [Telegraf](https://www.influxdata.com/time-series-platform/telegraf/)
Note that Influx line protocol expects [timestamps in *nanoseconds* by default](https://docs.influxdata.com/influxdb/v1.7/write_protocols/line_protocol_tutorial/#timestamp),
while VictoriaMetrics stores them with *milliseconds* precision.
Arbitrary CSV data can be imported via `/api/v1/import/csv`. The CSV data is imported according to the provided `format` query arg.
The `format` query arg must contain comma-separated list of parsing rules for CSV fields. Each rule consists of three parts delimited by a colon:
```
<column_pos>:<type>:<context>
```
*`<column_pos>` is the position of the CSV column (field). Column numbering starts from 1. The order of parsing rules may be arbitrary.
*`<type>` describes the column type. Supported types are:
*`metric` - the corresponding CSV column at `<column_pos>` contains metric value. The metric name is read from the `<context>`.
CSV line must have at least a single metric field.
*`label` - the corresponding CSV column at `<column_pos>` contains label value. The label name is read from the `<context>`.
CSV line may have arbitrary number of label fields. All these fields are attached to all the configured metrics.
*`time` - the corresponding CSV column at `<column_pos>` contains metric time. CSV line may contain either one or zero columns with time.
If CSV line has no time, then the current time is used. The time is applied to all the configured metrics.
The format of the time is configured via `<context>`. Supported time formats are:
*`unix_s` - unix timestamp in seconds.
*`unix_ms` - unix timestamp in milliseconds.
*`unix_ns` - unix timestamp in nanoseconds. Note that VictoriaMetrics rounds the timestamp to milliseconds.
*`rfc3339` - timestamp in [RFC3339](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3339) format, i.e. `2006-01-02T15:04:05Z`.
*`custom:<layout>` - custom layout for the timestamp. The `<layout>` may contain arbitrary time layout according to [time.Parse rules in Go](https://golang.org/pkg/time/#Parse).
Each request to `/api/v1/import/csv` can contain arbitrary number of CSV lines.
Example for importing CSV data via `/api/v1/import/csv`:
helps to spin up VictoriaMetrics, Prometheus and Grafana with one command.
More details may be found [here](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/tree/master/deployment/docker#folder-contains-basic-images-and-tools-for-building-and-running-victoria-metrics-in-docker).
### Setting up service
Read [these instructions](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/43) on how to set up VictoriaMetrics as a service in your OS.
VictoriaMetrics can create [instant snapshots](https://medium.com/@valyala/how-victoriametrics-makes-instant-snapshots-for-multi-terabyte-time-series-data-e1f3fb0e0282)
for all the data stored under `-storageDataPath` directory.
Navigate to `http://<victoriametrics-addr>:8428/snapshot/create` in order to create an instant snapshot.
Send a request to `http://<victoriametrics-addr>:8428/api/v1/admin/tsdb/delete_series?match[]=<timeseries_selector_for_delete>`,
where `<timeseries_selector_for_delete>` may contain any [time series selector](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/querying/basics/#time-series-selectors)
for metrics to delete. After that all the time series matching the given selector are deleted. Storage space for
the deleted time series isn't freed instantly - it is freed during subsequent merges of data files.
It is recommended verifying which metrics will be deleted with the call to `http://<victoria-metrics-addr>:8428/api/v1/series?match[]=<timeseries_selector_for_delete>`
Send a request to `http://<victoriametrics-addr>:8428/api/v1/export?match[]=<timeseries_selector_for_export>`,
where `<timeseries_selector_for_export>` may contain any [time series selector](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/querying/basics/#time-series-selectors)
for metrics to export. Use `{__name__!=""}` selector for fetching all the time series.
The response would contain all the data for the selected time series in [JSON streaming format](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON_streaming#Line-delimited_JSON).
Each request to `/api/v1/import` can load up to a single vCPU core on VictoriaMetrics. Import speed can be improved by splitting the original file into smaller parts
and importing them concurrently. Note that the original file must be split on newlines.
at `http://<victoriametrics-addr>:8428/federate?match[]=<timeseries_selector_for_federation>`.
Optional `start` and `end` args may be added to the request in order to scrape the last point for each selected time series on the `[start ... end]` interval.
`start` and `end` may contain either unix timestamp in seconds or [RFC3339](https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3339.txt) values. By default, the last point
on the interval `[now - max_lookback ... now]` is scraped for each time series. The default value for `max_lookback` is `5m` (5 minutes), but it can be overridden.
For instance, `/federate?match[]=up&max_lookback=1h` would return last points on the `[now - 1h ... now]` interval. This may be useful for time series federation
with scrape intervals exceeding `5m`.
### Capacity planning
A rough estimation of the required resources for ingestion path:
* RAM size: less than 1KB per active time series. So, ~1GB of RAM is required for 1M active time series.
Time series is considered active if new data points have been added to it recently or if it has been recently queried.
The number of active time series may be obtained from `vm_cache_entries{type="storage/hour_metric_ids"}` metric
VictoriaMetrics stores various caches in RAM. Memory size for these caches may be limited by `-memory.allowedPercent` flag.
* CPU cores: a CPU core per 300K inserted data points per second. So, ~4 CPU cores are required for processing
the insert stream of 1M data points per second. The ingestion rate may be lower for high cardinality data or for time series with high number of labels.
See [this article](https://medium.com/@valyala/insert-benchmarks-with-inch-influxdb-vs-victoriametrics-e31a41ae2893) for details.
If you see lower numbers per CPU core, then it is likely active time series info doesn't fit caches,
so you need more RAM for lowering CPU usage.
* Storage space: less than a byte per data point on average. So, ~260GB is required for storing a month-long insert stream
of 100K data points per second.
The actual storage size heavily depends on data randomness (entropy). Higher randomness means higher storage size requirements.
* VictoriaMetrics has good compression for on-disk data. See [this article](https://medium.com/@valyala/victoriametrics-achieving-better-compression-for-time-series-data-than-gorilla-317bc1f95932)
See [this issue](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/issues/36) for details.
### Multi-tenancy
Single-node VictoriaMetrics doesn't support multi-tenancy. Use [cluster version](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/tree/cluster) instead.
### Scalability and cluster version
Though single-node VictoriaMetrics cannot scale to multiple nodes, it is optimized for resource usage - storage size / bandwidth / IOPS, RAM, CPU.
This means that a single-node VictoriaMetrics may scale vertically and substitute a moderately sized cluster built with competing solutions
such as Thanos, Uber M3, InfluxDB or TimescaleDB. See [vertical scalability benchmarks](https://medium.com/@valyala/measuring-vertical-scalability-for-time-series-databases-in-google-cloud-92550d78d8ae).
So try single-node VictoriaMetrics at first and then [switch to cluster version](https://github.com/VictoriaMetrics/VictoriaMetrics/tree/cluster) if you still need
horizontally scalable long-term remote storage for really large Prometheus deployments.
[Contact us](mailto:info@victoriametrics.com) for paid support.
The only option is increasing the limit on [the number of open files in the OS](https://medium.com/@muhammadtriwibowo/set-permanently-ulimit-n-open-files-in-ubuntu-4d61064429a),
so Prometheus instances could establish more connections to VictoriaMetrics.
* The recommended filesystem is `ext4`, the recommended persistent storage is [persistent HDD-based disk on GCP](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks/#pdspecs),
since it is protected from hardware failures via internal replication and it can be [resized on the fly](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks/add-persistent-disk#resize_pd).
There are officials Grafana dashboards for [single-node VictoriaMetrics](https://grafana.com/dashboards/10229) and [clustered VictoriaMetrics](https://grafana.com/grafana/dashboards/11176).
* If VictoriaMetrics works slowly and eats more than a CPU core per 100K ingested data points per second,
then it is likely you have too many active time series for the current amount of RAM.
It is recommended increasing the amount of RAM on the node with VictoriaMetrics in order to improve
ingestion performance.
Another option is to increase `-memory.allowedPercent` command-line flag value. Be careful with this
option, since too big value for `-memory.allowedPercent` may result in high I/O usage.
* VictoriaMetrics requires free disk space for [merging data files to bigger ones](https://medium.com/@valyala/how-victoriametrics-makes-instant-snapshots-for-multi-terabyte-time-series-data-e1f3fb0e0282).
It may slow down when there is no enough free space left. So make sure `-storageDataPath` directory
* [Prometheus Oauth proxy](https://gitlab.com/optima_public/prometheus_oauth_proxy) - see [this article](https://medium.com/@richard.holly/powerful-saas-solution-for-detection-metrics-c67b9208d362) for details.
