# Using the Elastic Stack as database for big data

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-the-elastic-stack-as-database-for-big-data/237276>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [June 16, 2020, 10:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-the-elastic-stack-as-database-for-big-data/237276 "2020-06-16T10:52:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![TiTanT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9d8465/32.png) [@TiTanT](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/TiTanT)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2020, 10:52am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-the-elastic-stack-as-database-for-big-data/237276/1 "2020-06-16T10:52:59Z")

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Hi Guys,

I wanted to know if it is a good idea to use the elastic stack as database for big data. The data is used to do data science stuff later.

Further the database should scale and enable a lot of read and write access.

What are the limits of the elastic stack?

T

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2020, 11:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-the-elastic-stack-as-database-for-big-data/237276/2 "2020-07-12T23:25:12Z")

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That's a very broad question, but Elasticsearch can scale to billions of records while maintaining sub-second response times.

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**Author:** ![Steve\_Mushero](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/steve_mushero/32/22441_2.png) [@Steve\_Mushero](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Steve_Mushero)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2020, 6:46am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-the-elastic-stack-as-database-for-big-data/237276/3 "2020-07-13T06:46:41Z")

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And keep in mind that Elasticstack is great at ingesting data and VERY bad at updating it, so that's a primary limitation for any data set that needs anything more than trivial updates.

But as @warkolm mentions, the rest depends a lot on the data, how it would arrive, be queried, etc. You do see more 'big data' projects on Elasticsearch, especially with Machine Learning, scalability, etc. but also non-trivial to manage at scale (well, that's true of every large system).

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2020, 7:01am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-the-elastic-stack-as-database-for-big-data/237276/4 "2020-07-13T07:01:22Z")

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It's not bad, it does it perfectly fine.  
It is _relatively_ expensive though.

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**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2020, 7:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-the-elastic-stack-as-database-for-big-data/237276/5 "2020-07-13T07:26:31Z")

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Updates are generally fine as long as they are not frequent.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2020, 7:26am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/using-the-elastic-stack-as-database-for-big-data/237276/6 "2020-08-10T07:26:39Z")

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