Kapacitor and Continuous Queries: How To Decide Which Tool You Need` Kapacitor and Continuous Queries are two powerful tools in InfluxData's TICK stack, designed to handle different use cases. Continuous Queries (CQs) were created to aggregate data, reducing storage requirements by storing query results in a new measurement, while Kapacitor is a processing engine that can perform more complex tasks such as querying data on a schedule, performing transformations, and alerting based on conditions. To decide which tool to use, consider factors such as the number of CQs being run, the complexity of data transformations needed, and whether downsampled data is required, with Kapacitor often recommended for more complex queries or large-scale use cases, while CQs are suitable for simple aggregation tasks requiring high storage efficiency.