Presto (or PrestoDB)

Last updated: February 8, 2026Reviewed date: February 8, 2026Reading time: 4 min read

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Article Summary

Presto (or PrestoDB) is an open source, distributed SQL query engine, designed from the ground up for fast analytic queries against data of any size. It supports both non-relational sources, such as the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), Amazon S3, Cassandra, MongoDB, and HBase, and relational data sources such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Amazon Redshift, Microsoft SQL Server, and Teradata. Presto can query data where it is stored, without...

Key Takeaways

This article explains What is the history of Presto? in simple medical language.
This article explains How does Presto work? in simple medical language.
This article explains What are the differences between Presto and Hadoop? in simple medical language.
This article explains Who uses Presto? in simple medical language.

Before reading

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Start here Choose the right pathway for symptoms, reports, medicines, or urgent warning signs. Disease article roadmap Read this topic step by step: meaning, symptoms, warning signs, diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and follow-up. Treatment planner Prepare questions about treatment choices, benefits, risks, side effects, and follow-up. Family & caregiver guide Organize symptoms, reports, medicines, questions, and follow-up safely. Nutrition & diet guide Prepare food, hydration, supplement, and medicine-timing questions safely. Prevention guide Organize risk factors, protective habits, screening, and warning signs. Recovery guide Prepare a safe plan for activity, rehabilitation, warning signs, and follow-up.

Educational health guideWritten for patient understanding and clinical awareness.

Reviewed content workflowUse writer and reviewer profiles for stronger trust.

Emergency safety firstUrgent warning signs are highlighted below.

Definition

Presto (or PrestoDB) is an open source, distributed SQL query engine, designed from the ground up for fast analytic queries against data of any size. It supports both non-relational sources, such as the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), Amazon S3, Cassandra, MongoDB, and HBase, and relational data sources such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Amazon Redshift, Microsoft SQL Server, and Teradata.

Presto can query data where it is stored, without needing to move data into a separate analytics system. Query execution runs in parallel over a pure memory-based architecture, with most results returning in seconds. You’ll find it used by many well-known companies like Facebook, Airbnb, Netflix, Atlassian, and Nasdaq.

What is the history of Presto?

Presto started as a project at Facebook, to run interactive analytic queries against a 300PB data warehouse, built with large Hadoop/HDFS-based clusters. Prior to building Presto, Facebook used Apache Hive, which it created and rolled out in 2008, to bring the familiarity of the SQL syntax to the Hadoop ecosystem. Hive had a significant impact on the Hadoop ecosystem for simplifying complex Java MapReduce jobs into SQL-like queries, while being able to execute jobs at high scale. However, it wasn’t optimized for fast performance needed in interactive queries.

In 2012, the Facebook Data Infrastructure group built Presto, an interactive query system that could operate quickly at petabyte scale. It was rolled out company-wide in spring, 2013. In November, 2013, Facebook open sourced Presto under the Apache Software License, and made it available for anyone to download on Github. Today, Presto has become a popular choice for doing interactive queries on Hadoop, and has a lot of contributions from Facebook, and other organizations. Facebook’s implementation of Presto is used by over a thousand employees, who run more than 30,000 queries, processing one petabyte of data daily.

How does Presto work?

Presto is a distributed system that runs on Hadoop, and uses an architecture similar to a classic massively parallel processing (MPP) database management system. It has one coordinator node working in synch with multiple worker nodes. Users submit their SQL query to the coordinator which uses a custom query and execution engine to parse, plan, and schedule a distributed query plan across the worker nodes. It is designed to support standard ANSI SQL semantics, including complex queries, aggregations, joins, left/right outer joins, sub-queries, window functions, distinct counts, and approximate percentiles.

After the query is compiled, Presto processes the request into multiple stages across the worker nodes. All processing is in-memory, and pipelined across the network between stages, to avoid any unnecessary I/O overhead. Adding more worker nodes allows for more parallelism, and faster processing.

To make Presto extensible to any data source, it was designed with storage abstraction to make it easy to build pluggable connectors. Because of this, Presto has a lot of connectors, including to non-relational sources like the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), Amazon S3, Cassandra, MongoDB, and HBase, and relational sources such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Amazon Redshift, Microsoft SQL Server, and Teradata. The data is queried where it is stored, without the need to move it into a separate analytics system.

What are the differences between Presto and Hadoop?

Presto is an open source, distributed SQL query engine designed for fast, interactive queries on data in HDFS, and others. Unlike Hadoop/HDFS, it does not have its own storage system. Thus, Presto is complimentary to Hadoop, with organizations adopting both to solve a broader business challenge. Presto can be installed with any implementation of Hadoop, and is packaged in the Amazon EMR Hadoop distribution.

Who uses Presto?

Presto is used in production at very large scale at many well-known organizations. You’ll find it used at Facebook, Airbnb, Netflix, Atlassian, Nasdaq, and many more. Facebook’s implementation of Presto is used by over a thousand employees, who run more than 30,000 queries, processing one petabyte of data daily. On average, Netflix runs around 3,500 queries per day on its Presto clusters. Airbnb built and open sourced, Airpal, a web-based query execution tool that works on top of Presto. The broader Presto community can be found on this forum and on the Presto page on Facebook.

How can you deploy Presto in the cloud?

Presto is an ideal workload in the cloud, because the cloud provides performance, scalability, reliability, availability, and massive economies of scale. You can launch a Presto cluster in minutes. You don’t need to worry about node provisioning, cluster setup, Presto configuration, or cluster tuning.

Safety note: This is not a prescription or diagnosis. For severe symptoms, pregnancy danger signs, children with serious illness, chest pain, breathing difficulty, stroke-like weakness, or major injury, seek urgent care.

Which doctor may help?

Start with a registered doctor or the nearest qualified health center.

What to tell the doctor

Write when the problem started and how it changed.
Bring old prescriptions, investigation reports, and current medicines.
Write allergies, pregnancy status, diabetes, kidney/liver disease, and major past illnesses.
Bring one family member if the patient is weak, elderly, confused, or a child.

Questions to ask

What is the most likely cause of my symptoms?
Which danger signs mean I should go to hospital quickly?
Which tests are necessary now, and which can wait?
How should I take medicines safely and what side effects should I watch for?
When should I come for follow-up?

Tests to discuss

Vital signs: temperature, pulse, blood pressure, oxygen saturation
Basic physical examination by a clinician
CBC, urine test, blood sugar, or imaging only when clinically needed

Avoid these mistakes

Do not use antibiotics, steroid tablets/injections, or strong painkillers without proper medical advice.
Do not hide pregnancy, kidney disease, ulcer, allergy, or blood thinner use.
Do not delay emergency care when danger signs are present.

Medicine safety and first-aid guide

This section is for patient education only. It does not replace a doctor, pharmacist, or emergency care.

Safe first steps

Rest, drink safe water, and observe symptoms carefully.
Keep a written note of symptoms, duration, temperature, medicines already taken, and allergy history.
Seek medical care quickly if symptoms are severe, worsening, or unusual for the patient.

OTC medicine safety

For mild pain or fever, ask a registered pharmacist or doctor before using common over-the-counter pain/fever medicines.
Do not combine multiple pain medicines without advice, especially if you have kidney disease, liver disease, stomach ulcer, asthma, pregnancy, or take blood thinners.
Do not give adult medicines to children unless a qualified clinician advises it.

Avoid these mistakes

Do not start antibiotics without a proper medical decision.
Do not use steroid tablets or injections casually for quick relief.
Do not delay emergency care because of home remedies.

Get urgent help if

Severe symptoms, confusion, fainting, breathing difficulty, chest pain, severe dehydration, or sudden weakness need urgent medical care.

Medicine names, dose, and timing must be decided by a qualified clinician or pharmacist after checking age, pregnancy, allergy, other diseases, and current medicines.

For rural patients and family caregivers

Patient health record and symptom diary

Write your symptoms, medicines already taken, test results, and questions before visiting a doctor. This note stays on your device unless you print or copy it.

Doctor to discuss: Doctor / qualified healthcare provider

Tests to discuss with doctor

Basic vital signs: temperature, pulse, blood pressure, oxygen level if needed
Relevant blood, urine, imaging, or specialist tests only after clinical assessment

Questions to ask

What is the most likely cause of my symptoms?
Which warning signs mean I should go to emergency care?
Which tests are really needed now?
Which medicines are safe for my age, pregnancy status, allergy, kidney/liver/stomach condition, and current medicines?

Emergency warning signs such as chest pain, severe breathing difficulty, sudden weakness, confusion, severe dehydration, major injury, or loss of bladder/bowel control need urgent medical care. Do not wait for online information.

Go to emergency care if you notice:

Severe or rapidly worsening symptoms
Breathing difficulty, chest pain, fainting, confusion, severe weakness, major injury, or severe dehydration

Doctor / service to discuss: Qualified healthcare provider; specialist depends on symptoms and examination.

Step 1
Check danger signs first

If danger signs are present, seek emergency care and do not wait for online information.
Step 2
Record the symptom story

Write when symptoms started, severity, medicines already taken, allergies, pregnancy status, and test results.
Step 3
Visit a qualified clinician

A doctor, nurse, or qualified healthcare provider can examine you and decide which tests or treatment are needed.
Step 4
Do only useful tests

Do tests after clinical assessment. Avoid unnecessary tests, random antibiotics, or repeated medicines without diagnosis.
Step 5
Follow up and return early if worse

If symptoms worsen, new warning signs appear, or treatment is not helping, return for review quickly.

Rural patient practical tips

Take a written symptom diary and all previous prescriptions/test reports.
Do not hide medicines already taken, even herbal or over-the-counter medicines.
Ask which warning signs mean urgent referral to hospital.

This roadmap is for education. A real diagnosis and treatment plan requires history, examination, and clinical judgment.

Internal learning pathway

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