ClickHouse vs InfluxDB comparison

ClickHouse and InfluxData are both solutions in the Open Source Databases category. ClickHouse is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.8, while InfluxData is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.3. ClickHouse holds a 2.7% mindshare in OSD, compared to InfluxData’s 3.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ClickHouse users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of InfluxData users who would recommend it.

ClickHouse

Read 10 ClickHouse reviews

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529 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

InfluxDB

Read 9 InfluxDB reviews

1,757 Views
1,286 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

ClickHouse

InfluxDB

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

InfluxDB and ClickHouse compete in the realm of time-series data management, with ClickHouse emerging as the more potent option due to its advanced feature set catering to complex data scenarios.

Features: InfluxDB is open-source, integrates smoothly with the TICK stack, and is ideal for real-time analytics with precision time-stamping. It offers a user-friendly interface and easy integration with other tools, such as Grafana. ClickHouse provides high throughput analytics capabilities, is optimized for complex queries, and supports real-time query performance, making it efficient for handling large datasets with minimal cost.

Room for Improvement: InfluxDB could benefit from improved scalability and enhanced enterprise-grade support. It also needs more advanced analytical functionalities and richer feature sets to compete with broader data querying environments. ClickHouse could improve on ease of initial setup, enhanced capabilities in data mutation handling, and better integration with cloud services for broader usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: InfluxDB offers a straightforward installation process and community-backed support, allowing for quick deployments suitable for small-scale applications. ClickHouse, on the other hand, comes with robust documentation and enterprise-grade support, useful for larger, complex deployments requiring detailed, professional guidance.

Pricing and ROI: InfluxDB offers a cost-effective entry point with its open-source version, appealing to budget-conscious enterprises, though premium features might incur higher costs. ClickHouse requires an initial investment but delivers higher ROI through efficient handling of large datasets, leveraging enhanced analytics and lower operational costs in data management.

To learn more, read our detailed ClickHouse vs. InfluxDB Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ClickHouse vs. InfluxDB

March 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

ClickHouse

Ranking in Open Source Databases

6th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vector Databases (10th)

InfluxDB

Ranking in Open Source Databases

11th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Non-Relational Databases (4th), Network Monitoring Software (55th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (46th), NoSQL Databases (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 2.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of InfluxDB is 3.3%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Open Source Databases

Featured Reviews

ArpitShah

Software Analyst at CLSA

Open-source freedom with efficient data handling and room for documentation growth

A significant area for improvement is the documentation, which is not comprehensive and lacks centralized resources, making it difficult to find information. Additionally, ClickHouse lacks robust support for transactional data, which limits its use as a primary database. My developer experience could be enhanced through better-organized documentation, perhaps by offering a cheat sheet or centralized guide for common setup and usage scenarios.

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PedroCampos

Senior DevOps at Light And Wonder

A powerful, lightweight time series database with a simple query language and easy setup

Influx has TICK Stack, which contains multiple services and multiple products that work together. InfluxDB is just a time series database, and it works really well. I haven't yet had the time to look into the new stack based on Influx 2.0, but currently, as a time series database, InfluxDB is working the way it is supposed to work. In terms of features that I would like to see or have, in the community version, some features are not available. I would like to have clustering and authentication in the community version. I would also like to have high availability features, such as replication, active-active, etc. If they can put an extra plugin or service on top of it, it would be something interesting. I am not sure if they have high availability to make it data center-aware for clustering. For example, I am not sure whether you can have it at different locations with big clusters that are location-aware. Even in their documentation or presentation, they talk too little about high availability and extended clusters with different locations. They might already have it in the newer versions. We have Influx 1.8 in our production in the stage and internal workloads environments. The other products in their ecosystem, such as Chronograf, can be improved. Chronograf is a dashboarding or visualization layer product, and that, for sure, can be improved.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The main feature of ClickHouse is the optimizer because we had too many records to deduplicate, and the optimizer took this task by itself."

"The tool's most valuable feature is a database. It supports portal APIs and offers good flexibility."

"ClickHouse is open source with no vendor lock-in, providing excellent freedom to choose any vendor without restrictions."

"ClickHouse is much faster than traditional databases like MySQL and MongoDB. Its column-row searching strategy makes it very efficient. With ClickHouse, we can manage multiple databases, automatically insert data from other databases and delete data as needed. It supports real-time query performance, allowing simultaneous data insertion and retrieval. ClickHouse has improved significantly over the past two years, adding more functions and queries, as well as top functionality."

"ClickHouse is a user-friendly solution that tries to be compatible with SQL standards."

"We faced a challenge with deploying ClickHouse onto Kubernetes. Recently, we've been using ClickHouse Cloud, and the main issue is the high cost of the cloud service. The pricing isn't very competitive, especially for startups. I would instead buy a server and self-host if I have enough disk space. Besides that, ClickHouse has done very well, with clear goals and effective execution."

"If you have a real-time basis, you should take a look at ClickHouse because it works on a vector database, and the querying is super fast compared to traditional databases."

"It's easier to work with big data and calculations using the product."

More ClickHouse pros

"The user interface is well-designed and easy to use. It provides a clear overview of the data, making it simple to understand the information at hand."

"The platform operates very quickly. It is easy to configure, connect, and query and integrates seamlessly with Grafana."

"The solution is very powerful."

"In our case, it started with a necessity to fill the gap that we had in monitoring. We had very reactive monitoring without trend analysis and without some advanced features. We were able to implement them by using a time series database. We are able to have all the data from applications, logs, and systems, and we can use a simple query language to correlate all the data and make things happen, especially with monitoring. We could more proactively monitor our systems and our players' trends."

"The most valuable features are aggregating the data and integration with Graphana for monitoring."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is we can use InfluxDB to integrate with and plug into any other tools."

"The most valuable features of InfluxDB are the documentation and performance, and the good plugins metrics in the ecosystem."

"InfluxDB is a database where you can insert data. However, it would be best if you had different components for alerting, data sending, and visualization. You need to install tools to collect data from servers. It must be installed on Windows or Linux servers. During installation, ensure that the configuration file is correct to prevent issues. Once data is collected, it can be sent to InfluxDB. For visualization, you can use open-source tools like Grafana."

More InfluxDB pros

Cons

"One issue is that you need persistent volumes. Otherwise, if one system goes down, you lose data in that cluster."

"The main issue is the lack of documentation. Many features are available but are not fully documented, which can make finding information challenging."

"The aggregation capability is a valuable feature. It's highly efficient, allowing us to review entire transaction histories and user activities in the market. We've tried MongoDB, Postgres, MariaDB, and BigQuery, but ClickHouse is the most cost-efficient solution for collecting data at high speeds with minimal cost. We even used ClickHouse Cloud for a month, and it proved to be a great setup, especially for startups looking to handle big data. For example, if there is a need for 2-4 terabytes of data and around 40 billion rows with reasonable computing speed and latency, ClickHouse is ideal. Regarding the real-time query performance of ClickHouse, when using an API server to query it, I achieved query results in less than twenty milliseconds in some of my experiments with one billion rows. However, it depends on the scenario since ClickHouse has limitations in handling mutations. Additionally, one of ClickHouse's strengths is its compression capability. Our experimental server has only four terabytes, and ClickHouse effectively compresses data, allowing us to store large amounts of data at high speed. This compression efficiency is a significant advantage of using ClickHouse."

"There are some areas where ClickHouse could improve. Specifically, we encountered incompatibilities with its SQL syntax when migrating queries from MySQL or SQL to ClickHouse. This difference in details made it challenging to figure out the exact issues. Additionally, we faced difficulties due to the lack of a proper Django driver for ClickHouse, unlike MySQL, which Django supports out of the box."

"Initially, I faced challenges integrating ClickHouse, particularly with inserting data from ActiveMQ, which caused duplicates. However, after adjusting the ClickHouse settings, the issue was resolved and there were no more duplicates."

"There aren't too many improvements I'd suggest for ClickHouse as it covers all my needs. There are just a few technical issues. For example, sometimes, when you want to get unique values and use certain tables, they don't work as expected. But it's not a major problem."

"We had a lot of troubles while deploying a whole cluster."

"I would like ClickHouse to work more on integration with third-party tools."

More ClickHouse cons

"InfluxDB cannot be used for high-cardinality data. It's also difficult and time-consuming to write queries, and there are some issues with bulk API."

"In terms of features that I would like to see or have, in the community version, some features are not available. I would like to have clustering and authentication in the community version."

"I've tried both on-premises and cloud-based deployments, and each has its limitations."

"InfluxDB is generally stable, but we've encountered issues with the configuration file in our ticket stack. For instance, a mistake in one of the metrics out of a hundred KPIs can disrupt data collection for all KPIs. This happens because the agent stops working if there's an issue with any configuration part. To address this, it is essential to ensure that all configurations are part of the agent's EXE file when provided. This makes it easier to package the agent for server installation and ensures all KPIs are available from the server. Additionally, the agent cannot encrypt and decrypt passwords for authentication, which can be problematic when monitoring URLs or requiring authentication tokens. This requires additional scripting and can prolong service restart times."

"The solution doesn't have much of a user interface."

"The error logging capability can be improved because the logs are not very informative."

"The solution's UI can be more user-friendly."

"InfluxDB can improve by including new metrics on other technologies. They had some changes recently to pool data from endpoints but the functionality is not good enough in the industry."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."

"If you have an in-house deployment on Kubernetes or something, it's going to be very cheap since you'll be managing everything."

"We used the free, community version of ClickHouse."

"The tool is free."

"ClickHouse has an open-source version, which is free to use and has almost all the features."

"ClickHouse Cloud is not expensive compared to other databases, costing a few dollars per month while providing fast performance."

"For pricing, if you use the self-hosted version, it would be free. Cloud services pricing would be an eight out of ten. I try to minimize costs but still have to monitor usage."

"We are using the open-source version of InfluxDB."

"InfluxDB is open-source, but there are additional costs for scaling."

"The tool is an open-source product."

"InfluxDB recently increased its price. It is very expensive now."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

27%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Educational Organization

14%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ClickHouse?

ClickHouse is open source without direct fees, unlike other databases that have hidden fees or restrict hosting to their platforms. The open-source nature of ClickHouse allows for complete flexibil...

See all answers

What needs improvement with ClickHouse?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ClickHouse?

The main use case for ClickHouse is as a data warehouse for handling large volumes of data that exceed the capabilities of traditional databases like Postgres. I use it for creating dashboards and ...

See all answers

What do you like most about InfluxDB?

InfluxDB is a database where you can insert data. However, it would be best if you had different components for alerting, data sending, and visualization. You need to install tools to collect data ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with InfluxDB?

InfluxDB is generally stable, but we've encountered issues with the configuration file in our ticket stack. For instance, a mistake in one of the metrics out of a hundred KPIs can disrupt data coll...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for InfluxDB?

I use the solution to store and manage data from various sensors in a production environment. I have developed a system where data from these sensors is communicated through an OPC UA receiver and ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 15% of the time

SingleStore vs ClickHouse

Compared 11% of the time

Milvus vs ClickHouse

Compared 10% of the time

Cassandra vs ClickHouse

Compared 9% of the time

Redis vs ClickHouse

Compared 6% of the time

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MongoDB vs InfluxDB

Compared 35% of the time

ScyllaDB vs InfluxDB

Compared 7% of the time

Cassandra vs InfluxDB

Compared 6% of the time

Netdata vs InfluxDB

Compared 4% of the time

PostgreSQL vs InfluxDB

Compared 3% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ClickHouse

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

InfluxDB

March 2025

Download InfluxDB product report

Overview

ClickHouse is renowned for its speed, scalability, and real-time query performance. Its compatibility with SQL standards enhances flexibility while enabling integration with popular tools.

ClickHouse leverages a column-based architecture for efficient data compression and real-time analytics. It seamlessly integrates with tools like Kafka and Tableau and is effective in handling large datasets due to its cost-efficient aggregation capabilities. With robust data deduplication and strong community backing, users can access comprehensive documentation and up-to-date functionality. However, improvements in third-party integration, cloud deployment, and handling of SQL syntax differences are noted, impacting ease-of-use and migration from other databases.

What features make ClickHouse outstanding?

Speed and Scalability: Enables rapid deployment and scalability, particularly on Kubernetes.
SQL Compatibility: Aligns with SQL standards for flexible database management.
Column-based Structure: Offers efficient data compression and quick query performance.
Integration Support: Works with Kafka, Tableau, and other popular platforms.
Data Deduplication: Manages complex data duplication efficiently.

What benefits should users consider?

Cost-Efficiency: Reduces expenses while managing large datasets effectively.
Real-Time Analytics: Provides fast data processing for real-time insights.
Flexibility: Offers multiple integration points and compatibility options.
Robust Documentation: Backed by an active development community, ensuring comprehensive support.

ClickHouse is deployed in sectors like telecommunications for passive monitoring and is beneficial for data analytics, logging Clickstream data, and as an ETL engine. Organizations harness it for machine learning applications when combined with GPT. With the ability to be installed independently, it's an attractive option for avoiding cloud service costs.

ClickHouse

InfluxDB is open-source software that helps developers and enterprises alike to collect, store, process, and visualize time series data and to build next-generation applications. InfluxDB provides monitoring and insight on IoT, application, system, container, and infrastructure quickly and easily without complexities or compromises in scale, speed, or productivity.

InfluxDB has become a popular insight system for unified metrics and events enabling the most demanding SLAs. InfluxDB is used in just about every type of industry across a wide range of use cases, including network monitoring, IoT monitoring, industrial IoT, and infrastructure and application monitoring.

InfluxDB offers its users:

Infrastructure and application monitoring: Collect, process, and analyze real-time data from edge devices to help optimize distributed infrastructure.

IoT monitoring and analytics: InfluxDB is designed to store large volumes of time series data and quickly perform real-time analysis on that data. Gain insights from all the sensor data and use the collected data to create and perform automated tasks.

Network monitoring: Manage responsive and high-performing networks with widely distributed resources.

InfluxDB Benefits

There are several benefits to using InfluxDB . Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

APIs and ready toolset: InfluxDB can be accessed via a set of powerful tools enabling users to get started quickly, with less programming required. This includes a REST API, extensive client libraries, a wide variety of open-source integrations, and Flux - a functional data scripting language for querying, analysis, and events. The InfluxDB API can be used to write data from edge devices to the InfluxDB instance

Time series engine: Get any data - events, logs, traces - from any edge device - systems, sensors, queues, databases, and networks. This data is stored in a powerful and high-performing engine capable of ingesting millions of data points per second.

Community: InfluxDB has a large community of cloud and open-source developers ready to assist users.

Ready-made templates: Use InfluxDB Templates, a set of tools with a packager and other ready monitoring solutions. These tools allow users to share their monitoring expertise with coworkers and other community members around the world. The Templates gallery offers available templates for some of the most popular tools and applications.

Enhanced UI: InfluxDB’s UI includes an explorer, dashboarding tools, and a script editor. Use it to easily browse the collected metric and event data and apply common transformations. The dashboarding tool comes with a variety of visualization options that help users view insights from the data. The script editor assists users to quickly master Flux with easily accessible examples, auto-completion, and real-time syntax checking.

Reviews from Real Users

InfluxDB stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its flexible integration options and its data aggregation feature.

Shalauddin Ahamad S., a software engineer at a tech services company, notes, “The most valuable features are aggregating the data and the integration with Grafana for monitoring.”

InfluxData

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

ebay, AXA, Mozilla, DiDi, LeTV, Siminars, Cognito, ProcessOut, Recommend, CATS, Smarsh, Row 44, Clustree, Bleemeo

Buyer's Guide

ClickHouse vs. InfluxDB

March 2025

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