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ClickHouse vs PostgreSQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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
Ranking in Vector Databases
10th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
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 April 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 3.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 18.2%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

ArpitShah - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AdityaSharma3 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…

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."
"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."
"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."
"It's easier to work with big data and calculations using the product."
"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."
"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."
"It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping."
"PostgreSQL is stable. It's available, stable, and reliable."
"The solution is scalable, it is very good."
"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 is very powerful, easy to manage, and has many features."
"The tool is user-friendly."
"The solution has many valuable features such as it easy to use and the interface is intuitive."
"Postgres has some functions called JSONB aggregators or other aggregators, which are quite useful."
 

Cons

"The main issue is the lack of documentation. Many features are available but are not fully documented, which can make finding information challenging."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"ClickHouse has its own concept of database triggers and doesn't support traditional database triggers."
"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."
"We had a lot of troubles while deploying a whole cluster."
"If it was free to use, it would be the perfect solution."
"There are some products out there that have a slightly different method of implementation for the SQL language. Some of those are slightly better in some areas, and PostgreSQL is slightly better in some areas. I would probably like to match all of those products together. It is just down to the functionality. For example, Oracle has a number of options within SQL that are outside of what you would class as the SQL standard. PostgreSQL misses some of those, but PostgreSQL does other things that are better than what Oracle does. I would like to merge those two products so that there is a certain amount of functionality in a single product."
"The user interface for the clients could be easier to use as they are small businesses. From a technical support perspective, the documentation could be improved."
"We often find the solution's datetime datatype challenging."
"Sometimes, the views create problems. If you don't have the view, sometimes what happens is you need to have the drivers properly set up for PostgreSQL."
"PostgreSQL is a stable system, but from a security point of view, it still needs improvement."
"PostgreSQL’s performance could be improved."
"I have noticed that user and access management should be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ClickHouse has an open-source version, which is free to use and has almost all the features."
"The tool is open-source."
"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."
"The tool is free."
"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."
"ClickHouse Cloud is not expensive compared to other databases, costing a few dollars per month while providing fast performance."
"The community version of Postgre is basically free."
"We do not pay for licensing."
"PostgreSQL is a free and open-source database."
"The tool is cheaply priced compared to other RDBMS providers in the market."
"It is an open-source platform."
"There is an annual license."
"It is open source. There is no licensing."
"It is also open-source so it is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
27%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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...
What needs improvement with ClickHouse?
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 s...
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 ...
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...
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.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about ClickHouse vs. PostgreSQL and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.