I've been using KQL for a long time, it really is a nice language both for querying and maintaining the data.
But, aside from fixing some serious language issues with SQL, I really enjoy the wide range of supported scenarios. You can use KQL to query a SQL database [1], you can use python [2], do all kinds of time-series analysis [3][4], do distinct counts on various fields without too much explicit query-authoring [5].
My main beef with Azure Data Explorer (which, as I understand it, is the engine that handles the query execution) is the price... I wish it was easy for hobbyist developers to launch and try out.
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/kusto/q... [2] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/kusto/q... [3] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/kusto/q... [4] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/kusto/q... [5] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/kusto/q...
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/start-f...
[0]: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.c...
At first I found the language rather akward and was wondering why yet another query language. But the more I used it the more it grew on me. The thing I really like is that unlike the clauses in SQL, the order of operators isn't really fixed and it reads and feels like a pipe command in a Unix shell.
One example where I find this far superior is when doing aggregations. In SQL I would have to modify both the start and the end of the query, which is quite a nuisance.
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/kusto/q...)