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Comment by zihotki | Hacker News Reader

The article is not actually about observability and why it requires a columnt store but a marketing article about Honeycomb's database, IMO. The topic is better explained in another article they link to - https://www.honeycomb.io/blog/so-you-want-to-build-an-observ... .

Also while PostgreSQL as well as MySQL were initially row-based DBs, they both nowadays support columnt store. PostgreSQL supports it via Citus and MySql (MariaDB) supports it natively.

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Both articles try to redefine "Observability" into a set of requirements that (they claim) only their product meets. It's fine to argue that your product is the best, but it's a bit much to come up with an entirely new definition for a widely and loosely used word, which is not that similar to the common meaning.

As I understand it, honeycomb popularised observability before it got redefined by other vendors to match their offering. So I think you're the victim of other vendors' marketing here.

I agree they’re a bit strong on the sales pitch, but they’re not trying to come up with a new definition so much as bring the words usage back to its technical meaning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observability

TIL! Still, the common usage within technology is not that meaning, and many of the claims are put perhaps more strongly than is justified.

Column store is just the first step in OLAP optimization. You also need an engine that's optimized for columnar calculation(minimize data transfer/copy, vectorized calculation, etc..). It's the reason why purpose-built columnar DB like Clickhouse still run circle around MySQL/PgSQL in analytic jobs, even when the later use their column store.

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