I've advocated for and implemented several InfluxDB installations in production over the last year+, and one of the considerations was always that non-alpha (prod-ready) clustering was always promised in the 'next version' that was just around the corner.

Several months ago it seemed clear that the team was overly optimistic, and it's just disappointing to see that now the clustering will be available only in a paid (minimum $400!) option or on their hosted service.

I understand the business considerations here, but it feels like a bait n' switch for all the people who evaluated/used InfluxDB in single-node operation as a temporary measure while giving the team ample time to work out the clustering kinks.

Lesson learned I guess... but dang what an expensive lesson.