---
title: Hyperfunctions overview | Tiger Data Docs
description: TimescaleDB hyperfunctions are high-performance, SQL-native functions purpose-built for time-series analysis
---

Real-time analytics needs more than basic aggregates, especially as data volume grows. TimescaleDB hyperfunctions are SQL-native helpers built for time-series analysis: they process, aggregate, and analyze large volumes efficiently so you can run sophisticated queries and still hit interactive latencies.

Hyperfunctions introduce partial aggregation, letting TimescaleDB store intermediate states instead of raw data or final results. These partials can be merged later for rollups (consolidation), eliminating costly reprocessing and slashing compute overhead, especially when paired with continuous aggregates.

Take tracking p95 latency across thousands of app instances as an example:

- With standard SQL, every rollup requires rescanning and resorting massive datasets.
- With TimescaleDB, the `percentile_agg` hyperfunction stores a compact state per minute, which you simply merge to get hourly or daily percentiles, no full reprocess needed.

![percentile\_agg hyperfunction in Tiger Console](/docs/_astro/percentile_agg_hyperfunction.CSMmXZ7W.svg)

The result? Scalable, real-time percentile analytics that deliver fast, accurate insights across high-ingest, high-resolution data, while keeping resource use lean.

Tiger Cloud includes all hyperfunctions by default, while self-hosted TimescaleDB includes a subset of them. To include all hyperfunctions with TimescaleDB, install the [TimescaleDB Toolkit](/docs/deploy/self-hosted/tooling/install-toolkit/index.md) PostgreSQL extension on your self-hosted PostgreSQL deployment.

For more information, read the [hyperfunctions blog post](https://www.tigerdata.com/blog/time-series-analytics-for-postgresql-introducing-the-timescale-analytics-project).

## Learn hyperfunction basics and install TimescaleDB Toolkit

- [Learn about hyperfunctions](/docs/learn/hyperfunctions/about-hyperfunctions/index.md) to understand how they work before using them.
- Install the [TimescaleDB Toolkit extension](/docs/deploy/self-hosted/tooling/install-toolkit/index.md) to access more hyperfunctions on self-hosted TimescaleDB.