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Databases · head to head

Timeplus vs Zabbix

Timeplus logo

Timeplus

Databases

Streaming SQL engine built on ClickHouse internals, shipping as one small binary

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Zabbix logo

Zabbix

Networking

Open source infrastructure and network monitoring with distributed proxies and templating

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Timeplus proton, the free version, is single-node by design, so any requirement for high availability or horizontal scale forces the commercial licence; the open source edition is a trial in practical terms.; Zabbix the database is the scaling limit, and high frequency polling grows history tables fast enough that untuned installations hit housekeeping stalls and query timeouts within months.
  • They diverge on capability: Timeplus covers Streaming SQL, Zabbix covers Agent and agentless collection.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Timeplus and Zabbix actually diverge.

Attributes where Timeplus and Zabbix differ
AttributeTimeplusZabbix
Pricing modelPer month for cloud, quoted for self-hostedOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, WebLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web
CategoryDatabasesNetworking

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Timeplus

  • Streaming SQL
  • Unified streaming and historical
  • ClickHouse-based engine
  • Single binary deployment
  • External streams
  • Materialised views

Only in Zabbix

  • Agent and agentless collection
  • Templates
  • Low-level discovery
  • Distributed proxies
  • Trigger expressions
  • Escalation actions

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Timeplus

  • Real-time alerting on Kafka topics where standing up a Flink cluster is more work than the use case justifiesnot Zabbix
  • Fraud or anomaly detection that must join a live event stream against recent history in one querynot Zabbix
  • Streaming ETL from Kafka or MySQL change data capture into ClickHouse without writing Javanot Zabbix
  • A small data team that needs continuous aggregation but has no platform engineers to operate JVM infrastructurenot Zabbix

Zabbix

  • A service provider monitoring thousands of customer devices where per-device commercial licensing is the largest line itemnot Timeplus
  • Branch or industrial sites with unreliable links that need local collection and bufferingnot Timeplus
  • Mixed estates where the same tool must poll SNMP switches, Linux hosts, Windows servers and Java applicationsnot Timeplus
  • Replacing an aging Nagios installation while keeping script-based checks that already existnot Timeplus

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Timeplus

  • Proton, the free version, is single-node by design, so any requirement for high availability or horizontal scale forces the commercial licence; the open source edition is a trial in practical terms.
  • It is a young project against Apache Flink’s decade of production history, so the hiring pool, the connector library and the body of known failure modes are all much smaller.
  • Inheriting ClickHouse internals also inherits ClickHouse constraints: memory-hungry queries, awkward updates and a SQL dialect that is not portable to other engines.
  • Exactly-once semantics and state recovery guarantees are less battle-tested than Flink checkpointing, which matters if the pipeline moves money.
  • Cloud pricing is by provisioned instance size rather than usage, so a bursty workload pays for peak capacity around the clock or has to be resized by hand.

Zabbix

  • The database is the scaling limit, and high frequency polling grows history tables fast enough that untuned installations hit housekeeping stalls and query timeouts within months.
  • Initial configuration is heavy; getting useful alerting rather than noise requires understanding trigger expressions, macros and template inheritance, which is a multi-week learning curve for a team new to it.
  • The AGPLv3 change at version 7.0 affects anyone offering Zabbix over a network as part of a commercial service, and that obligation is easy to inherit accidentally during an upgrade.
  • The web interface is functional rather than pleasant, and many sites end up running Grafana alongside it purely for presentation, which is a second system to maintain.
  • Upgrades between major versions touch the database schema and can take hours on large history tables, so the maintenance window is proportional to how much data you kept.

Pricing, plan by plan

Timeplus

Free
  • Timeplus ProtonFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Single node only
    • Full streaming SQL engine
  • Timeplus Cloud$199/month
    • One to thirty-two CPUs
    • 4 GB to 128 GB memory
    • From 250 GB SSD storage
  • Self-hosted or BYOC$undefined/year
    • Multi-node clustering
    • Kubernetes or bare metal
    • Customisable compute and storage

Zabbix

Free
  • ZabbixFree
    • No device, node or metric limits
    • Full feature set with no paid edition of the software
    • AGPLv3 from version 7.0 onward
  • Zabbix Technical Support$undefined/year
    • Tiered subscriptions with defined response times
    • Access to Zabbix engineers for configuration and performance issues
    • Bug fix priority and backports

Which should you pick?

Choose Timeplus if

  • You need streaming sql.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
  • You also want unified streaming and historical.
Timeplus review

Choose Zabbix if

  • You need agent and agentless collection.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
  • You also want templates.
Zabbix review

Questions people ask

Is Timeplus or Zabbix better?
Neither clearly leads. Timeplus starts at Free and Zabbix at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Timeplus or Zabbix?
Timeplus starts at Free and Zabbix at Free.
Does Timeplus or Zabbix run on more platforms?
Timeplus runs on Linux, macOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Web. Zabbix runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Web.
Can I use Timeplus for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Timeplus best used for?
Timeplus is most often used for real-time alerting on kafka topics where standing up a flink cluster is more work than the use case justifies, fraud or anomaly detection that must join a live event stream against recent history in one query, streaming etl from kafka or mysql change data capture into clickhouse without writing java, a small data team that needs continuous aggregation but has no platform engineers to operate jvm infrastructure. Of those, real-time alerting on kafka topics where standing up a flink cluster is more work than the use case justifies and fraud or anomaly detection that must join a live event stream against recent history in one query are not what Zabbix is typically brought in for.
What can Timeplus do that Zabbix cannot?
Timeplus covers Streaming SQL, Unified streaming and historical, ClickHouse-based engine, Single binary deployment. Zabbix covers Agent and agentless collection, Templates, Low-level discovery, Distributed proxies.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Timeplus: Is Timeplus open source?

The core engine, Timeplus Proton, is Apache 2.0. Timeplus Enterprise and Cloud are commercial.

Zabbix: Is Zabbix genuinely free for commercial use?

The software has no licence fee at any scale. From version 7.0 it is AGPLv3, so offering it as a network service to third parties carries source distribution obligations.

Timeplus: What is the difference from Flink?

Timeplus is one binary with SQL as the only interface; Flink is a JVM cluster with a Java and SQL API and far more operational surface.

Zabbix: What is the real cost of running it?

Database administration and the person who tunes it. Budget for PostgreSQL with TimescaleDB and someone who owns the retention policy.

Timeplus: Can Proton run in production?

It can, but it is single-node only, so there is no high availability without the commercial edition.

Zabbix: How does it compare to a commercial per-device tool?

It removes the licence line entirely and adds an operations line. Below a few hundred devices the commercial tool is often cheaper in total; above that Zabbix wins clearly.

Timeplus: How much is the cloud?

From 199 US dollars a month, sized by CPU and memory, with a fourteen day trial.

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