ClickHouse vs PostgreSQL comparison

ClickHouse and PostgreSQL are both solutions in the Open Source Databases category. ClickHouse is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.9, while PostgreSQL is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4. ClickHouse holds a 2.3% mindshare in OSD, compared to PostgreSQL’s 18.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ClickHouse users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of PostgreSQL users who would recommend it.

ClickHouse

Read 9 ClickHouse reviews

482 Views
378 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

PostgreSQL

Read 125 PostgreSQL reviews

9,815 Views
8,352 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

ClickHouse

PostgreSQL

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

PostgreSQL and ClickHouse are two powerful solutions competing in the database category. PostgreSQL appears to have the upper hand in versatility and feature support, making it suitable for complex SQL tasks, whereas ClickHouse holds an advantage in speed for big data processing and real-time analytics.

Features: PostgreSQL offers extensive SQL standards support, exceptional procedural language options, and scalability for write-heavy operations, making it a versatile, cost-effective solution. In contrast, ClickHouse is optimized for speed, effectively handling vast datasets and real-time queries, coupled with strong data compression, beneficial for analytics and rapid data retrieval.

Room for Improvement: PostgreSQL can enhance its read performance, further extend SQL features, and streamline installation. Improvements in replication and partitioning would markedly benefit users. ClickHouse could enhance compatibility with traditional SQL syntax and ease integration with third-party tools, minimizing setup effort and promoting broader adoption.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PostgreSQL is deployable across various environments, though it necessitates considerable technical expertise. Its community provides robust support in lieu of formal customer service. ClickHouse is well-suited for cloud deployments but may require additional expertise for conventional setups. Both rely on active community engagement for user support.

Pricing and ROI: Being open-source, both PostgreSQL and ClickHouse offer significant cost benefits over proprietary alternatives. PostgreSQL is especially advantageous for feature-rich applications, providing a low TCO and strong ROI. ClickHouse facilitates cost-effective scaling for data-intensive tasks and real-time analytics, though cloud-based implementations might entail extra maintenance costs.

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

Buyer's Guide

ClickHouse vs. PostgreSQL

January 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

8th

Ranking in Vector Databases

11th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

PostgreSQL

Ranking in Open Source Databases

2nd

Ranking in Vector Databases

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

125

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 2.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 18.6%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Open Source Databases

Featured Reviews

Dmitriy Yugin

Senior Data/Web Analyst at Raiffeisen Bank

Can set it up on computer and run queries without depending on the cloud

The tool is open-source, so you don't need to pay for the software itself. However, you need to consider hardware costs and maintenance. A small company can install it on a company computer. For larger companies, you might need to hire a team for maintenance and consider data safety and privacy issues. Integrating ClickHouse with other tools in our data stack was easy. It has native connections to many tools, such as Google and Amazon cloud solutions, and can easily connect with other databases. For beginners, the ease of use depends on your background. If you're familiar with relational databases, it's easy. If not, you might need to read the documentation or ask for support.

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AdityaSharma3

Vice President Business at Techmagnate: Digital Marketing Agency

Transaction processes are fast and good replication capability

Use cases include querying data warehouses and databases to fetch data for clients already working on PostgreSQL. We also use Postgres for building reports It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping. The query speed is fast, and the…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best thing about the tool is that I can set it up on my computer and run queries without depending on the cloud. This is why I use it every day."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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 is column-based and infinitely scalable."

More ClickHouse pros

"Postgres is rock solid when deployed according to best practices as documented by the PostgreSQL community. When it's installed correctly, PostgreSQL is an enterprise-grade solution."

"The database has excellent performance."

"It is a pretty comprehensive database system. Its performance is good, and it does what it is supposed to do. It also integrates very well."

"We managed to reduce the storage space needed to 10% of the original size, without affecting data integrity, and we significantly improved the performance."

"PostgreSQL makes it very adaptable to several descriptions of a record. Instead of having several tables or several relations for one entity, I can adapt this entity. It can be a multiform entity. For example, here in Mexico, a company and a person can be sold to us as a physical entity or a physical person."

"It's quite scalable."

"We are able to create many different types of jobs and items with this solution making it one of the most valuable features."

"The product's deployment is easy."

Cons

"If you join our team, it should be easy for you to use ClickHouse, especially if you are a developer. However, you need to read the documentation and understand the problems you are trying to solve."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More ClickHouse cons

"There are several features I would like to improve that aren't working as expected. It's likely that the latest version is doing something that was missed in the previous versions. For example, the output parameters — the stored procedures — is something new in PostgreSQL that Firebird has already had for a long time."

"PostgreSQL is a stable system, but from a security point of view, it still needs improvement."

"Postgres should focus on building a stronger knowledge base. They also need to expand their integration capabilities, so more tools and resources are available to manage it."

"The scalability is limited."

"It still needs to be more mature and have some backup feature. We are normally dealing with Oracle's data, and we have very strong online tools to back up the data and do other things. PostgreSQL still needs to do more in this area as well as in the high availability area. There are many external tools that you can use for PostgreSQL's high availability, but there is no embedded tool within PostgreSQL for high availability. It could have a feature similar to Oracle for working on a distributed system. It can have some scripts to improve the monitoring and some tools to do performance analysis. We have a workaround for most of such requirements except for the support for a distributed system, which is very difficult to have. This area should be included in the core of the database itself."

"Sometimes, it becomes slow because of the network. So, there is room for improvement in performance."

"The database and applications can become very slow."

"A better graphic user-interface would be nice to see."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 used the free, community version of ClickHouse."

"The tool is open-source."

"The tool is free."

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

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

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

"It is open-source. If you use it on-premise, it is free. It also has enterprise or commercial versions. If you go for the cloud version, there will be a cost, but it is lower than Oracle or Microsoft."

"PostgreSQL is a free and open-source database."

"PostgreSQL is open-source, so if capable admins are available then the setup cost can be $0."

"There is an annual license."

"It is free, but if you need support, you can go for the commercial version called EnterpriseDB. They provide paid support, and they can even do hosting for you if you want standby and support."

"It is free. There is no license on it."

"The solution requires a license."

"It could be much cheaper. If you would like to build an application on Amazon today, PostgreSQL is the standard database with Redshift. If you want other databases, you can add them, but PostgreSQL is the basis of everything. It's a question of money, that's it."

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

25%

Educational Organization

17%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ClickHouse?

The tool is open-source.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ClickHouse?

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 ce...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ClickHouse?

I used ClickHouse to collect data, put it in the database, and then analyze it to find insights. The main advantage is that I can install it on my computer instead of using cloud-based solutions, s...

See all answers

How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...

See all answers

What do you like most about PostgreSQL?

It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?

The tool is free of cost. For now, it's not about making money. But once we perfect it, we can offer it to customers willing to pay for support and other services. Most of my deployments are free.

See all answers

Comparisons

OpenSearch vs ClickHouse

Compared 19% of the time

InfluxDB vs ClickHouse

Compared 15% of the time

SingleStore vs ClickHouse

Compared 13% of the time

Milvus vs ClickHouse

Compared 12% of the time

MariaDB vs ClickHouse

Compared 4% of the time

More ClickHouse Competitors

Firebird SQL vs PostgreSQL

Compared 39% of the time

MySQL vs PostgreSQL

Compared 15% of the time

EDB Postgres Advanced Server vs PostgreSQL

Compared 13% of the time

MariaDB vs PostgreSQL

Compared 8% of the time

InfluxDB vs PostgreSQL

Compared 1% of the time

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ClickHouse

February 2025

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Buyer's Guide

PostgreSQL

January 2025

Download PostgreSQL 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

PostgreSQL is a versatile and reliable database management system commonly used for web development, data analysis, and building scalable databases.

It offers advanced features like indexing, replication, and transaction management. Users appreciate its flexibility, performance, and ability to handle large amounts of data efficiently. Its robustness, scalability, and support for complex queries make it highly valuable.

Additionally, PostgreSQL's extensibility, flexibility, community support, and frequent updates contribute to its ongoing improvement and stability.

PostgreSQL

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

1. Apple 2. Cisco 3. Fujitsu 4. Instagram 5. Netflix 6. Red Hat 7. Sony 8. Uber 9. Cisco Systems 10. Skype 11. LinkedIn 12. Etsy 13. Yelp 14. Reddit 15. Dropbox 16. Slack 17. Twitch 18. WhatsApp 19. Snapchat 20. Shazam 21. SoundCloud 22. The New York Times 23. Cisco WebEx 24. Atlassian 25. Cisco Meraki 26. Heroku 27. GitLab 28. Zalando 29. OpenTable 30. Trello 31. Square Enix 32. Bloomberg

Buyer's Guide

ClickHouse vs. PostgreSQL

January 2025

Free Report: ClickHouse vs. PostgreSQL

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