Altertable Catalogs

Altertable catalogs are managed data stores hosted by Altertable. Each catalog uses the lakehouse architecture and supports continuous analytical workloads.

Altertable catalogs are distinct from external catalogs, which connect to databases or warehouses you already own.

Altertable has three managed catalog experiences:

• Altertable catalogs: catalogs you create yourself for warehouse-style data you want Altertable to host and query.
• Product Analytics: a separate built-in managed catalog named product_analytics that you enable per environment and use in read-only mode for events, identities, and derived analytics tables.
• OpenTelemetry: a separate built-in managed catalog named opentelemetry that you enable per environment and use for OTLP logs and traces.

This page focuses on Altertable catalogs that you create directly. For the product analytics catalog, see Product Analytics. For observability data, see OpenTelemetry.

Each Altertable catalog stores its files in a selected bucket. Every environment includes a built-in bucket, and you can connect additional buckets when you want to choose the provider or endpoint yourself.

To create a new Altertable catalog:

1. Confirm the bucket you want to use is available in Buckets
2. Navigate to Catalogs
3. Click New catalog and choose Altertable
4. Enter a name for your catalog
5. Choose the bucket that should store the catalog
6. Click Create catalog

Once created, you can immediately start querying it through Altertable's SQL engine.

Use the built-in bucket for the default Altertable-managed setup, or choose another connected bucket when you want the catalog to live in your own object storage.

Snapshot Retention

Altertable catalogs keep snapshots so you can use DuckLake time travel and data change feed features. The Snapshot retention setting controls how long old snapshots are retained:

Set a retention period when storage cost or compliance requires old table versions to expire. Leave it blank when long-running time travel and historical auditability matter more than storage cleanup.