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Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs ClickHouse comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Azure Database for PostgreSQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (7th)
ClickHouse
Ranking in Open Source Databases
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Daniel Amini - PeerSpot reviewer
An incredibly powerful industry leader that enabled us to build critical pieces of national infrastructure
Azure Database is simple and easy to use. We followed the prescribed training and upskilled 10 engineers. They think it's straightforward. They've already got PostgreSQL skills to optimize the solution, so they know what to do. It was easy to get started quickly and become effective. My team speaks highly of the platform's observability and monitoring features. It's as efficient as an enterprise needs it to be and. has all of the tooling and telemetry necessary to run an enterprise database. We take security seriously. The team has looked at the security features, and nothing has been flagged to us. My takeaway as a CTO is that they're comfortable with the security posture, the features, the observability, alerts, and now it integrates into the rest of the Azure landscape. The OpenAI integration and extensions have massively simplified integrating AI into a database. PostgreSQL's native vector capabilities are also incredibly powerful.
Aswini Atibudhi - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides real-time data insights with high flexibility and responsive support
The basic challenge for ClickHouse is the documentation, which isn't ideal, but it's mature and stable with more columnar storage, compression, and parallel processing, making it the best for OLAP. In terms of improvements, it's not designed for very frequent small writes, making it less scalable in write-intensive workloads, and it's not flourishing in transactional use cases or when ingesting streaming data, such as batching or buffering, which is something ClickHouse will improve.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"PostgresSQL is acknowledged as an incredibly powerful industry leader. We've built critical pieces of national infrastructure in the UK that rely on Postgres. A version of Postgres on Azure that's easy to adopt enables us to innovate. The addition of AI extensions is even more exciting. It's a significant opportunity for us."
"The operational efficiency of Azure Database for PostgreSQL is good."
"Our organization's database uptime has improved after implementing Azure Database for PostgreSQL, particularly with the flexible server's redundant configuration capabilities, which allow for failovers and read-only configurations."
"I rate Azure Database for PostgreSQL 10 out of 10."
"Backups are easy, resizing is quick, and the query analyzers help me find out what's happening in each of the queries."
"Azure Database has become easier to use over time."
"Overall, Azure Database for PostgreSQL has been good for us."
"I rate Azure Database for PostgreSQL 10 out of 10."
"It's easier to work with big data and calculations using the product."
"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."
"The tool's most valuable feature is a database. It supports portal APIs and offers good flexibility."
"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."
"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."
"ClickHouse is open source with no vendor lock-in, providing excellent freedom to choose any vendor without restrictions."
"ClickHouse is a user-friendly solution that tries to be compatible with SQL standards."
 

Cons

"There aren't any notable areas for improvement that I could see. PostgreSQL was self-sufficient with no need for additional database knowledge to maintain it."
"They can offer more RAG extensions. Currently, it only has the vector search."
"Performance is one area that has constraints for our customers. I believe there could be improvements in the mirroring part and Change Data Capture (CDC)."
"The critical service is the Azure OpenAI service. It would help to make it simpler and easier to integrate with that or cognitive services."
"Perhaps a minor improvement could be made in simplifying user additions, allowing for an easier process rather than scripting it out. However, scripting is not a significant issue."
"Support can certainly get better."
"They can offer more RAG extensions. Currently, it only has the vector search. It does not presently support knowledge graph functionalities as Neo4j does. It also does not offer some tools to improve indexing the way other vector databases offer."
"The critical service is the Azure OpenAI service. It would help to make it simpler and easier to integrate with that or cognitive services."
"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 main issue is the lack of documentation. Many features are available but are not fully documented, which can make finding information challenging."
"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."
"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."
"One issue is that you need persistent volumes. Otherwise, if one system goes down, you lose data in that cluster."
"I would like ClickHouse to work more on integration with third-party tools."
"In terms of improvements, it's not designed for very frequent small writes, making it less scalable in write-intensive workloads, and it's not flourishing in transactional use cases or when ingesting streaming data, such as batching or buffering, which is something ClickHouse will improve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing experience is positive. Azure Database for PostgreSQL reduces the need for hardware investments, and the pay-as-you-go pricing model positively affects database-related costs by allowing us to start small and scale as needed."
"We do not pay for a full-year subscription because our usage is still at the beginning phase and not much. The pay-as-you-go model works well for us."
"The pay-as-you-go pricing model plays a critical role in managing database-related costs and resource allocation. We build using Infrastructure as Code (IAC) and maintain a focus on FinOps to control Azure service costs. Some clients are pushy on price. It's critical to automate it, so we're just using it when appropriate and switching it off in certain scenarios."
"There aren't any notable areas for improvement that I could see. PostgreSQL was self-sufficient with no need for additional database knowledge to maintain it."
"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."
"We used the free, community version of ClickHouse."
"The tool is open-source."
"ClickHouse has an open-source version, which is free to use and has almost all the features."
"The tool is free."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Marketing Services Firm
20%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Educational Organization
9%
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
Pricing is affordable for us. PostgreSQL is good and affordable for our needs.
What needs improvement with Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
While the flexibility of the server for financial reasons is understandable, better switching between primary and backup would make transitions smoother. I noticed an issue where the primary refuse...
What is your primary use case for Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
We started using Azure Database for PostgreSQL ( /products/azure-database-for-postgresql-reviews ) about five to six years ago. Initially, we were doing an on-premises Kubernetes ( /products/kubern...
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?
The basic challenge for ClickHouse is the documentation, which isn't ideal, but it's mature and stable with more columnar storage, compression, and parallel processing, making it the best for OLAP....
What is your primary use case for ClickHouse?
I have experience in ClickHouse ( /products/clickhouse-reviews ), and we also use Apache Druid ( /products/druid-reviews ), which has corporate support from Druid ( /products/druid-reviews ), along...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs. ClickHouse and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
858,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.