InfluxData Blog - Peter Barnett

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.11: A Significant Performance Upgrade for Complex Time Series Workloads

Peter Barnett (InfluxData) — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Time series workloads rarely stay predictable for long. A system might begin with a few devices reporting a small set of measurements. As the fleet grows, new sensors come online, tags multiply, and query patterns change. A table that looked simple at the start becomes wide and sparse. A workload built around recent data expands into long-range analysis. As complexity grows, maintaining fast query performance and a predictable resource profile becomes much harder.

InfluxDB 3.11 was built for that reality.

Our last two releases gave users an early look at a set of performance improvements designed for heavier, more complex time series workloads. Today’s release of InfluxDB 3.11 makes those performance improvements GA in InfluxDB 3 Enterprise, bringing significantly faster queries on live data, greater flexibility for wide and ultra-sparse schemas, and more predictable performance under heavy load. The release also adds new Enterprise capabilities for backup and recovery, bulk data import, row-level deletes, and cluster operations.

Performance and flexibility for heavier, more complex workloads

Faster Reads for Single-Series Workloads

Time series applications rely on fast access to recent data, whether it’s the latest reading from a device, the current state of an asset, a narrow time range from a sensor, or a live view that tracks ingest. For highly selective queries, like those for a single time series, this new release of InfluxDB 3 Enterprise is up to 4x faster than previous versions.

Actual performance will vary by workload, schema, hardware, and query shape. But for industrial monitoring, fleet management, observability, energy systems, and other applications built around live operational data, these gains mean faster access to the current state of the system.

More Room for Wide, Sparse, and Changing Schemas

Time series data rarely arrives in one clean shape. As devices, sensors, tags, and operating environments change, schemas can become wide, sparse, and highly variable. Rigid schema limits can force teams to split data across more tables, drop useful context, or design around the database instead of the application.

InfluxDB 3.11 expands schema flexibility with support for thousands of tables and millions of columns, while efficiently handling ultra-sparse datasets where only a small fraction of fields may be populated at any given time. Teams can model complex, changing telemetry around the data itself, with predictable query performance even as schemas grow wider and sparser.

For customers moving from InfluxDB 1.x or 2.x to InfluxDB 3, this brings forward the schema flexibility they know from InfluxDB, now with the full SQL query engine, object-store-based durability, and unlimited cardinality.

More Predictable Performance Under Load

InfluxDB 3.11 reduces the resource spikes that can occur during heavy ingest and compaction. Memory usage is more predictable, and compaction runs with a more consistent resource profile, making it easier to understand what a workload actually requires.

Teams can size infrastructure with more confidence instead of holding extra capacity for occasional spikes. Query responsiveness stays steadier under load, while memory and infrastructure costs are easier to plan for as workloads grow.

New data management capabilities for Enterprise

InfluxDB 3.11 also adds new Enterprise capabilities for backing up, importing, and deleting data:

End-to-End Backup & Restore: You can now run full or incremental backups to capture compacted data. Restores run asynchronously, providing disaster recovery and allowing you to roll a live cluster back to an earlier point in time.
Bulk Import from Parquet: Bringing existing or external data into InfluxDB 3 is now much simpler. A new bulk-import feature lets you upload an entire directory of Parquet files to ingest the data directly.
Row-Level Deletes: Deleting individual rows is inherently more complex in columnar storage where data is optimized to be written and read in larger blocks. InfluxDB 3.11 now lets you target specific data by time range or tag predicate, without having to drop an entire table.

InfluxDB 3 Explorer UI, now built in

InfluxDB 3.11 brings the Explorer UI directly into InfluxDB 3, giving users a visual interface for querying, exploring, and managing their data out of the box.

Explorer goes well beyond basic data visualization. You can query data using SQL, InfluxQL, or natural language, convert existing Flux queries to SQL with AI-assisted explanations, and manage Processing Engine plugins from the built-in plugin manager. Explorer also includes schema browsing, sample data generation, visualization, and live instance monitoring in one interface.

Get started with InfluxDB 3.11

InfluxDB 3.11 brings the performance improvements introduced in our last two releases to GA, with faster single-series queries, support for wide and ultra-sparse schemas, and more predictable performance under load. New Enterprise data management capabilities and the built-in Explorer UI make these improvements easier to deploy and manage in production.

As time series workloads grow, so do demands on the database. InfluxDB 3.11 is built to maintain performance as complexity increases.

Download the latest version of InfluxDB 3 Core or Enterprise, pull the newest Docker image, or check out the docs (Core, Enterprise) to get started.

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.10: Performance Beta Expanded with New Enterprise Features

Peter Barnett (InfluxData) — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:00:00 +0000

In our last release, we introduced a beta of performance updates designed for heavier, more complex time series workloads. InfluxDB 3.10 expands that beta to include enterprise features that give teams more control as they scale and manage larger workloads in InfluxDB 3.

This release adds end-to-end backup and restore, row-level deletes, bulk import from Parquet, user management, and an RBAC preview to the previous performance beta. It also includes cross-database plugin queries, a new readiness endpoint, and compaction improvements for InfluxDB 3 Enterprise. Together, these updates help teams evaluate the next phase of InfluxDB 3 performance and scale with more of the operational tooling they need to manage real workloads.

We’re inviting customers to test this next phase of InfluxDB 3 performance and scale, share feedback, and help shape the path to general availability.

Expanded capabilities for the performance beta

The performance improvements we previewed in InfluxDB 3.9 continue to mature in beta. These updates are designed for teams testing heavier time series workloads, including higher ingest, wider schemas, sparse data, and more demanding recent-data queries.

The beta remains opt-in and is not yet the default, so existing deployments continue running unaffected unless teams explicitly enable it with the --use-pacha-tree flag.

Once users opt in to the beta, InfluxDB 3.10 adds operational capabilities, so teams can do more than test raw performance. They can protect data, recover from known-good states, remove bad or unnecessary rows, and bring existing Parquet datasets into InfluxDB 3 for evaluation. That matters for teams working with real production patterns, where data rarely arrives perfectly clean and workloads rarely stay fixed.

The following capabilities are available only when using the performance beta, enabled with the --use-pacha-tree flag:

End-to-end backup and restore: You can now run full backups that capture cluster state and compacted data for easy rollbacks. Restores run asynchronously, allowing you to recover data into a fresh store for disaster recovery or roll a live cluster back to an earlier point in time. We’ll soon be adding incremental restores to give you even more control over your restore points.
Row-level deletes: Teams can now remove specific rows based on time ranges or tag predicates rather than dropping entire tables when data needs to be purged. The compactor applies these changes asynchronously in the background, allowing teams to clean up production data without interrupting operations.
Bulk import from Parquet: A new bulk-import function makes it easier to bring historical or external data into InfluxDB 3. Teams can point InfluxDB at a generic Parquet file or an entire directory, use simple column mappings, and ingest each file as an independent import job.

User authentication and RBAC preview

As time series workloads become more central to production systems, access control becomes increasingly important. The same database may support operators monitoring live systems, developers building applications, analysts exploring historical data, and automated services writing or transforming telemetry.

InfluxDB 3.10 Enterprise introduces a preview of multi-user authentication and role-based access control (RBAC). This feature is turned off by default for this release.

When enabled, operators can configure traditional username and password logins that issue JWTs, or opt for external identity management through OAuth and OIDC. 3.10 also introduces built-in roles, including Admin, Auditor, and Member, to enforce proper boundaries across your teams. Best of all, your existing token workflows will continue to work exactly as they do today without any breaking changes.

General updates and improvements

InfluxDB 3.10 also includes several capabilities that work across all deployments to streamline data pipelines and improve cluster management.

Cross-Database Plugin Queries

Time series data often moves through stages: raw telemetry, cleaned data, downsampled rollups, forecasts, anomaly scores, and application-ready views. Those stages may live in different databases, but teams still need to connect them without building unnecessary external pipelines.

In 3.10, Processing Engine plugins are no longer restricted to querying their own database. Now, a plugin can query any database residing on that node. This unlocks read-from-one, write-to-another data pipelines, such as reading raw telemetry from a staging database and writing compacted rollups or machine learning forecasts to a production database.

Readiness Endpoint

Production deployments need health checks that reflect whether a node can actually serve traffic, not just whether a process is running. InfluxDB 3.10 adds a new /ready endpoint. Instead of a basic uptime check, this endpoint verifies whether the node can successfully reach its underlying object store, giving operators a more reliable signal for traffic routing.

Improved Compaction

Under heavy ingest, compaction needs to keep pace with incoming writes so query nodes can access optimized data. When compaction stalls, the path from raw writes to efficient queries slows down. InfluxDB 3.10 introduces parallel compaction, ensuring that query nodes access fully compacted data more quickly and serve queries faster.

Get started with InfluxDB 3.10

InfluxDB 3.10 is available now. To get started, download the latest version or pull the newest Docker image for Core or Enterprise.

InfluxDB 3 Core remains free and open source under MIT and Apache 2 licenses, optimized for recent data and local workloads. InfluxDB 3 Enterprise adds long-range querying, clustering, advanced security, and full operational tooling for production deployments.

Check out the docs (Core, Enterprise), try the release in your environment, and share your feedback in Discord or the Community Slack. We want your feedback as the performance beta continues to mature.

FAQ

What is the --use-pacha-tree flag, and what does it actually change under the hood?

The flag opts into a broader storage layer upgrade that introduces a new columnar file format (.pt files), automatic Parquet migration with hybrid query mode, column families for efficient wide-table I/O, and bounded compaction. This means enabling it changes how data is physically stored on disk, not just which API features are exposed, which is part of why it remains opt-in rather than default in 3.10.

Are the new backup/restore, row-level delete, and bulk import features exclusive to Enterprise, or do they also work in Core?

These capabilities are exclusive to Enterprise; row-level deletion, backup and restore, and bulk import all require the performance update preview and are not available in Core.

Is the performance beta storage format compatible with older InfluxDB 3 versions, or is upgrading a one-way move?

Catalog upgrades in this generation are one-directional and happen when upgrading to InfluxDB 3.10. After migration, 3.9.x and older binaries are unable to read the new catalog and fail to start on the same cluster data. Teams should back up before upgrading and treat enabling the beta (or later upgrading to newer releases) as a forward-only move for a given cluster.

How does the RBAC preview's JWT-based login differ from InfluxDB's existing token authentication?

Existing token workflows will continue to work exactly as they do today, meaning the new username/password and OAuth/OIDC login options are additive rather than a replacement. The new system layers session-based, role-scoped access (Admin, Auditor, Member) on top of the existing static API token model, giving teams a path toward user-level accountability without forcing an immediate migration away from token-based automation.

Does the new /ready endpoint replace existing health check endpoints, or supplement them?

The/ready endpoint focuses on traffic-routing accuracy: verifying that a node can actually serve traffic, not just whether a process is running, by checking connectivity to the object store. It's meant to supplement rather than replace basic liveness/uptime checks.

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.9: More Operational Control and a New Performance Preview

Peter Barnett (InfluxData) — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 12:00:00 +0000

We’ve spent the last few months listening to how teams are running InfluxDB 3 in the wild. The feedback was clear: as you scale, you need less “guesswork” and more control. Today’s release of InfluxDB 3.9 is our answer to that.

As more teams move InfluxDB 3 into production, our focus has shifted toward the operational experience: how you manage the database at scale, how you ensure it remains secure, and how you provide a seamless experience for users. This release is packed with a host of quality-of-life improvements and a beta of the key features we have planned for upcoming releases.

Whether you’re using the open source InfluxDB 3 Core for recent data and local workloads or scaling with InfluxDB 3 Enterprise for the full clustering and security suite, these 3.9 updates are designed to make your stack more predictable.

Operational maturity and system transparency

In 3.9, we’ve focused on making the database more predictable and transparent for operators. We have organized these refinements into three key areas:

Advanced CLI & Automation: We’ve expanded the CLI to better support complex, headless environments. This includes new flags for non-interactive automation and data validation, alongside support for unique host overrides to target specific node types in a cluster. We’ve also improved how Parquet query outputs are piped, making it easier to integrate InfluxDB into automated data pipelines.
System Reliability & Resource Management: We’ve refined how the database handles resources and large-scale schemas. To better support complex data, we’ve increased the default string field limit to 1MB. We’ve also hardened the database lifecycle; administrative controls are now more rigorous, and we’ve ensured that background resources, such as triggers, are cleanly decommissioned whenever a database is removed.
Visibility & Under-the-Hood Infrastructure: We’ve upgraded our core infrastructure to improve both security and operational clarity. This includes upgrading DataFusion and the bundled Python for more efficient query execution and plugin security. Additionally, the system now provides better visibility into access control and product identity, updating metrics, headers, and metadata access to clearly distinguish between Core and Enterprise builds across your stack.

Collectively, these refinements remove the subtle points of friction that can accumulate as a system scales in production. By hardening resource management and streamlining automation, we’re ensuring that InfluxDB 3 remains a predictable, “set-it-and-forget-it” core for your infrastructure.

Now in beta: A new performance preview

Behind the scenes, we’ve been working on performance updates to InfluxDB 3. These improvements support large-scale time series workloads without sacrificing predictability or operational simplicity. This work lays the foundation for what’s coming in 3.10 and 3.11, specifically focusing on smoothing behavior under load and expanding the range of schemas InfluxDB 3 can handle.

Because performance in time series is highly dependent on specific workloads and cardinality, we are introducing these updates as a beta in InfluxDB 3 Enterprise. The beta is intended for testing in staging or development environments only. It allows you to explore and provide feedback on:

Optimized single-series queries: Targeting reduced latency when fetching single-series data over long time windows.
Resource smoothing: Testing reduced CPU and memory spikes during heavy compaction or ingestion bursts.
Wide-and-sparse table support: For handling schemas ranging from extreme column counts to ultra-sparse data tables (or any combination).
Automatic distinct value caches: Early-stage, auto-creation of caches designed to reduce friction and eliminate metadata query latency.

These updates are available as an optional, flag-gated preview in InfluxDB 3.9 Enterprise. They are not recommended for production workloads. We encourage Enterprise users to test these capabilities against their specific use cases to help us refine the features for GA. InfluxDB 3 Core will also support many of these new features in the coming releases.

For instructions on how to enable these preview flags and to view the full technical requirements, visit our official Enterprise documentation.

Download InfluxDB 3.9: Available now via our downloads page or latest Docker images.
Join the beta: If you are an InfluxDB 3 Enterprise Trial user, reach out to me in our Discord or Community Slack to learn how to enable these beta features.

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.8: Linux Service Management, Kubernetes Helm Chart, and Smarter Ask AI

Peter Barnett (InfluxData) — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 07:30:00 +0000

InfluxDB 3.8 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, alongside the 1.6 release of the InfluxDB 3 Explorer UI. This release is focused on operational maturity and making InfluxDB easier to deploy, manage, and run reliably in production.

InfluxDB 3 Core remains free and open source under MIT and Apache 2 licenses, optimized for recent data. InfluxDB 3 Enterprise builds on that foundation with long-range querying, clustering, security, and full operational tooling.

Linux service management for Core and Enterprise

InfluxDB 3.8 introduces Linux service management across our deb and rpm packages, so InfluxDB installs and runs like a standard Linux service without manual setup.

Packages now register systemd units on modern distributions and provide SysV support for older environments. Services install cleanly, enable automatically, and respond to the same lifecycle commands operators already use. Configurability is centralized in a TOML file and a launcher that translates those settings into the server’s current configuration model.

Upgrading from Core to Enterprise is straightforward. Both use the same data and plugin locations, so you simply install Enterprise over Core and restart. There’s no data migration or juggling directories.

Helm chart for InfluxDB 3 Enterprise (beta)

For teams running InfluxDB on Kubernetes, 3.8 introduces an official Helm chart for Enterprise, currently in beta. This makes deployments more predictable, repeatable, and aligned with production best practices.

The Helm chart packages our recommended deployment patterns into a single chart so you don’t have to maintain custom manifests or piece together a configuration from scratch. It supports common production needs like object storage configuration, cluster settings, and environment-specific overrides, and uses standard Helm mechanisms for installs, upgrades, and rollouts.

During the beta, we’re focused on refining defaults and ensuring upgrades behave the way operators expect.

Custom instructions for Ask AI in Explorer

Version 1.6 of our Explorer UI expands Ask AI with Custom Instructions, giving users more control over how the AI behaves and what context it uses when generating responses. You can teach Ask AI naming conventions, call out which measurements or tags matter most, or specify how you want results formatted. This makes Ask AI more consistent across sessions, users, and shared environments.

This is especially useful when multiple teams work against different datasets, but want Ask AI to stay grounded in their specific workflows.

Other improvements

Explorer’s line protocol experience is smoother and easier to work with, with clearer validation and more helpful feedback.
The Processing Engine includes refinements to write buffering and query handling for sparse datasets, improving stability under uneven workloads.
New internal metrics give operators better visibility into ingestion, Processing Engine execution, and storage activity.

Get started

InfluxDB 3.8 is available now. Download the latest release or pull the newest Docker image for Core or Enterprise.

Explorer 1.6 is also available with Ask AI Custom Instructions and improvements across both writing and querying. Check out the docs (Core, Enterprise for more details, and join the conversation in Discord or the Community Slack. Your feedback continues to shape where we go next.

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.7: One-Click Monitoring, Faster Configuration, and Better Operational Clarity

Peter Barnett (InfluxData) — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 07:30:00 +0000

InfluxDB 3.7 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, landing alongside version 1.5 of the InfluxDB 3 Explorer UI. This release focuses on giving developers faster visibility into what their system is doing with one-click monitoring, a streamlined installation pathway, and broader updates that simplify day-to-day operations.

InfluxDB 3 Core is free and open source, optimized for recent data, and licensed under MIT and Apache 2. InfluxDB 3 Enterprise extends Core with long-term data retention, clustering, fine-grained security, and advanced management capabilities.

One-click system monitoring in Explorer 1.5

Version 1.5 of our Explorer UI introduces a new way to understand how your environment is performing. A single “Enable Monitoring” action configures your system appropriately and begins collecting host-level metrics for the infrastructure running InfluxDB.

A built-in dashboard tracks these metrics alongside database activity over time, making it easy to see how the system responds under load. The most relevant signals also surface directly in the System Overview, so you can spot issues before they turn into problems.

This provides an immediate, built-in way to understand the operational health of your running infrastructure. It’s particularly helpful for local development, on-prem deployments, and setups where full monitoring infrastructure isn’t available.

Faster installation and configuration

This update also introduces a new Docker Compose installation that starts InfluxDB 3 and Explorer together in one step. The Compose file installs both services, generates the Explorer configuration automatically using a new operator token, and brings everything online immediately. Once the stack is running, you can write data, run queries, and use Explorer without manual setup or additional staging.

This cuts down the time between installation and first interaction with the system and gives teams a consistent starting point for deployment and testing.

Other improvements

Finally, this release includes updates focused on operational clarity and system behavior:

More control over Processing Engine triggers
Improved data management when shutting down nodes
Enhanced response headers for cleaner integration with secondary services

Together, these changes improve system reliability and make it easier to understand what’s happening during maintenance and troubleshooting.

Get started

InfluxDB 3.7 is available now. To get started, download the latest version or pull the newest Docker image for Core or Enterprise.

Explorer 1.5 is also available with one-click monitoring. Try it in your environment and let us know how it works for you.

Check out the docs (Core, Enterprise), and join the conversation in Discord or the Community Slack. Your feedback continues to shape where we go next.

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.6: Ask AI, Simple Quick Start, and Smarter Automation

Peter Barnett (InfluxData) — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 07:30:00 +0000

InfluxDB 3.6 is now available for both Core and Enterprise. This release introduces the 1.4 update to InfluxDB 3 Explorer, featuring the beta launch of Ask AI, along with new capabilities for simple startup and expanded functionality in the Processing Engine.

Ask AI now in beta for InfluxDB 3 Explorer

Version 1.4 of our Explorer UI includes Ask AI, a new beta feature that brings natural language to time series analysis. Plug in your API key, and Ask AI lets you query your data, documentation, and system operations conversationally, with no SQL required.

You can say, “show CPU usage by region over the last hour” or “give me a chart of average temperature this week,” and InfluxDB will return the results you need in the format you want. Ask AI can also perform operational tasks like creating databases, generating tokens, or adjusting settings, all with a single prompt.

Ask AI lowers the barrier for new users and keeps advanced users fast and productive. It’s available now in beta through Explorer 1.4 for both Core and Enterprise.

Shareable dashboards

Explorer 1.4 also adds support for importing and exporting dashboards. You can now share dashboards between environments or move them between Explorer and Grafana using compatible JSON files. This makes it easier to standardize visualizations, collaborate across teams, and back up your dashboards with version control.

Quick start

InfluxDB 3.6 can now start by simply running influxdb3. For development or local environments, you no longer need to configure instance or storage information before running the database. IDs and data directories are created automatically, lowering initialization complexity, so you can get started in just a few seconds after download completes.

Quick start is for developers who want to test or prototype InfluxDB without setup overhead, or want to run in a simple local environment. Environment variables and CLI flags still override defaults, so production deployments remain fully explicit and configurable. This makes it easy to switch from local testing to production without changing workflows.

A major Processing Engine upgrade

The Processing Engine in InfluxDB 3 Enterprise enables you to execute custom Python code within the database to automate workflows, transform data, and create API endpoints. InfluxDB 3.6 expands the Processing Engine into a full extensibility layer. It now supports multifile Python plugins, direct uploads and updates, built-in observability, and tighter security controls.

Plugins can now include multiple files organized as proper Python modules, making code easier to maintain and reuse, with support for both single-file and directory-based plugins. Plugins can be uploaded or updated directly from your local environment without manual file transfers or server restarts, so users can iterate faster on complex data processing logic. All active plugins will continue to work without changes, with full backward compatibility.

To make management more transparent, InfluxDB now exposes all plugin files through a new plugin files table and a corresponding CLI command. Administrators can monitor which plugins are loaded, their size, and when they were last modified.

For production environments, new controls manage extensibility and governance together. Custom plugin repositories let organizations define trusted sources for plugins, while package management can now be fully disabled in locked-down environments, ensuring compliance without losing flexibility.

Get started

InfluxDB 3.6 is available now. To get started, download the latest version or pull the latest Docker image for Core or Enterprise.

Ask AI (Beta) is now available in Explorer 1.4. Try it in your environment and share feedback as we expand its capabilities.

Check out the docs (Core, Enterprise) for details, and let us know what you think in Discord or the Community Slack. Your feedback helps shape where we go next.

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.5: Explorer Dashboards, Cache Querying, and Expanded Control

Peter Barnett (InfluxData) — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 07:30:00 +0000

InfluxDB 3.5 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, along with updates to the new Explorer UI that make it easier to save, organize, and query your data. This release highlights the biggest updates since our 3.4 release, including Explorer Dashboards in beta, new cache querying capabilities, and stronger operational tools for managing clusters.

InfluxDB 3 Core is free and open source, optimized for recent data, and licensed under MIT and Apache 2. InfluxDB 3 Enterprise builds on that foundation with support for longer-term historical queries, high availability, enhanced security, and multi-node deployments.

Explorer Dashboards (beta)

InfluxDB 3 Explorer is designed for visualizing, querying, and managing your data stored in InfluxDB 3 Core and Enterprise. Explorer now supports Dashboards, giving you the ability to save and revisit your preferred queries in one place. Whether you’re tracking ongoing metrics or running repeat analyses, Dashboards make Explorer a more powerful workspace for time series monitoring and analysis.

Cache querying in Explorer

InfluxDB 3’s built-in Last Value and Distinct Value Caches eliminate costly full-table scans by providing immediate access to a time series’s most recent or unique values. With the release of 3.5, you can perform ad hoc queries against these caches from Explorer to support exploratory analysis and everyday workflows.

Last Values Cache: Pull the most recent values for each series with millisecond latency, ideal for “current state” dashboards or alerting.
Distinct Values Cache: Instantly query unique tag and field values, perfect for powering filters, dropdowns, or doing fast metadata lookups.

Smarter operational visibility and performance improvements

We’ve also introduced new features to simplify cluster management and improve oversight, and rolled out general improvements for production deployments:

CLI parameters in system tables: Startup parameters for each node are now queryable, giving operators direct visibility into configurations without chasing logs or flags.
Manual node management (Enterprise): Admins can stop cluster nodes in a controlled way, freeing up licensed cores and enabling smoother maintenance workflows.
Tightened security: Stronger token permissions prevent unintended access to the internal system database, and configurable TLS verification enables safe object store connections.

Get started

InfluxDB 3.5 is available today. To get started, download InfluxDB 3.5 or pull the latest Docker image for Core and Enterprise.

Check out the docs for details, and let us know what you think in Discord or our Community Slack. Your feedback helps shape where we go next.

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.4: Simpler Cache Management, Provisioned Tokens, and More

Peter Barnett (InfluxData) — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Today, we’re releasing InfluxDB 3.4 for Core and Enterprise, as well as our 1.2 update for the Explorer UI. This release focuses on developer efficiency, operational automation, and targeted security enhancements, giving teams faster setup, smoother workflows, and stronger guardrails for production use.

Simpler cache creation and management

We introduced the Last Value and Distinct Value caches to accelerate metadata queries and deliver near real-time access to current values. With 3.4, these caches can now be managed directly in the Explorer UI:

Last Value Cache: Instantly fetch the most recent measurements with millisecond latency. You can now configure caches through Explorer with dropdown selectors for databases and fields.
Distinct Value Cache: Rapidly retrieve unique tag/field values, ideal for powering dropdowns, metadata queries, or building clean user interfaces. Now, these too can be created and managed via Explorer.

Both cache types are available in the sidebar under Configure → Caches in Explorer, making it easy for users to optimize queries without touching config files.

Operational & workflow improvements

InfluxDB 3.4 simplifies setup with automation that removes repetitive steps and gives teams more control. From token provisioning and license management to Homebrew installs, it’s easier to run InfluxDB consistently across Docker Compose, CI/CD, and local development.

Token Provisioning

You can now predefine and provision your tokens instead of creating them manually in InfluxDB. This is especially useful for non-interactive workflows, such as Docker Compose and CI/CD, or when you need to generate many tokens at once. Both operator and admin tokens are supported, along with resource tokens in Enterprise.

Automated Licensing

Instances can now automatically select a trial or at-home license on first start. This removes a manual step and simplifies complex workflows, including Docker Compose setups.

Security, Bug Fixes, and More

InfluxDB 3.4 includes 15+ additional updates and improvements, including suppressing a noisy TableIndexCache log that you may have been seeing a bit too much of recently. Across catalog validations, plugin directory requirements, and InfluxQL updates, this is our most robust release to date. We’ve also added support for a new Azure endpoint and expanded options for token customization. Full details are available in the changelog.

Getting started

InfluxDB 3.4 is available now. To get started, download InfluxDB 3.4 or pull the latest Docker image for Core and Enterprise.

Check out the docs for details, and let us know what you think in Discord or our Community Slack. Your feedback helps shape where we go next.

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.3: Managed Plugins, Explorer Updates, and More

Peter Barnett (InfluxData) — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 06:00:00 +0000

InfluxDB 3.3 is now available for both Core and Enterprise, which introduces new managed plugins for the Processing Engine, making it easier to address common time series tasks with just a plugin. On top of that, 3.3 includes a wide range of performance improvements, feature updates, and bug fixes.

New managed plugins (beta)

InfluxDB 3.3 introduces a new set of managed plugins via the InfluxDB Plugin Library, available in beta for both Core and Enterprise. These plugins run inside the Processing Engine and handle common time series tasks (transformation, alerting, downsampling, etc.) right alongside your queries and transformations without extra code, or external services. Install what you need and get on with building.

The new plugins include:

Monitoring and Notification: Define conditions and receive alerts when something important happens.
Downsample: Lower resolution where you don’t need high precision. Save space and speed things up.
Anomaly Detection: Catch outliers and irregular patterns in real-time.
Forecasting: Predict future values based on historical trends.
Metrics Gathering: Instantly gather metrics on your host machine’s activity and performance.

You can use these plugins as is or customize them to your needs. They’re designed to give you building blocks so you can move faster.

InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.1 Update

We introduced InfluxDB 3 Explorer last month with its first official release. Today, we’re launching its first major update, which introduces a new way to discover, install, and manage plugins.

With 1.1, you can now discover new plugins and install them in seconds. You can inspect output logs, edit arguments for fine-tuning, and maintain operational oversight for both plugins from the Plugin Library and your self-created plugins.

Additionally, with the 1.1 update of InfluxDB 3 Explorer, you now get a high-level view of your entire system. From memory pressure to query and write performance, Explorer surfaces detailed insights into the health of your server and all active instances. You can also quickly review the latest queries to identify which ones are putting the most strain on your system’s resources.

Download InfluxDB 3 Explorer to get started.

More operational control

With InfluxDB 3.3, we’re introducing new features that make it easier to operate and maintain your deployment.

First, we’ve added a secure Operator token recovery mechanism. If an Operator token is lost, you can now start a dedicated recovery server using a single flag. It allows regeneration of a new token without prior credentials and automatically shuts down after use to prevent misuse. It’s a small, but critical safety net that solves a longstanding operational pain point.

We’ve also expanded observability to help you better understand system behavior. Write path logs now include database and IP metadata to provide more clarity on ingestion. A new system table for your Processing Engine triggers provides real-time visibility into plugin configurations, making it easier to audit and validate how your Processing Engine is running.

Together, these enhancements give you more control and insight into your system’s operation.

Get started

InfluxDB 3.3 is available today. To get started, download InfluxDB 3.3 or pull the latest Docker image for Core and Enterprise. Additionally, you can discover and contribute new plugins to the Plugin Library.

Check out the docs for details, and let us know what you think in Discord or our Community Slack. Your feedback helps shape where we go next.

InfluxData Blog - Peter Barnett

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.11: A Significant Performance Upgrade for Complex Time Series Workloads

Performance and flexibility for heavier, more complex workloads

Faster Reads for Single-Series Workloads

More Room for Wide, Sparse, and Changing Schemas

More Predictable Performance Under Load

New data management capabilities for Enterprise

InfluxDB 3 Explorer UI, now built in

Get started with InfluxDB 3.11

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.10: Performance Beta Expanded with New Enterprise Features

Expanded capabilities for the performance beta

User authentication and RBAC preview

General updates and improvements

Cross-Database Plugin Queries

Readiness Endpoint

Improved Compaction

Get started with InfluxDB 3.10

FAQ

What is the --use-pacha-tree flag, and what does it actually change under the hood?

Are the new backup/restore, row-level delete, and bulk import features exclusive to Enterprise, or do they also work in Core?

Is the performance beta storage format compatible with older InfluxDB 3 versions, or is upgrading a one-way move?

How does the RBAC preview's JWT-based login differ from InfluxDB's existing token authentication?

Does the new /ready endpoint replace existing health check endpoints, or supplement them?

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.9: More Operational Control and a New Performance Preview

Operational maturity and system transparency

Now in beta: A new performance preview

Get started and share your feedback:

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.8: Linux Service Management, Kubernetes Helm Chart, and Smarter Ask AI

Linux service management for Core and Enterprise

Helm chart for InfluxDB 3 Enterprise (beta)

Custom instructions for Ask AI in Explorer

Other improvements

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What’s New in InfluxDB 3.7: One-Click Monitoring, Faster Configuration, and Better Operational Clarity

One-click system monitoring in Explorer 1.5

Faster installation and configuration

Other improvements

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What’s New in InfluxDB 3.6: Ask AI, Simple Quick Start, and Smarter Automation

Ask AI now in beta for InfluxDB 3 Explorer

Shareable dashboards

Quick start

A major Processing Engine upgrade

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What’s New in InfluxDB 3.5: Explorer Dashboards, Cache Querying, and Expanded Control

Explorer Dashboards (beta)

Cache querying in Explorer

Smarter operational visibility and performance improvements

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What’s New in InfluxDB 3.4: Simpler Cache Management, Provisioned Tokens, and More

Simpler cache creation and management

Operational & workflow improvements

Getting started

What’s New in InfluxDB 3.3: Managed Plugins, Explorer Updates, and More

New managed plugins (beta)

InfluxDB 3 Explorer 1.1 Update

More operational control

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