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ClickHouse vs Firebird SQL 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
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (11th)
Firebird SQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 5.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Firebird SQL is 16.5%, down from 20.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Doug Meuross - PeerSpot reviewer
A reliable tool that offers good performance and is easy to use
I have had no issues with the stability of the product since it has always been a 100 percent reliable product and much better than the other databases available in the market. The multi-platform part is not good, especially when locked into things like Windows. You can judge your platform with Linux or Unix or whatever since they are good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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 very easy to use; one of the good features is that it has joins, which were not present in Druid, and Druid was quite expensive, especially with our applications at Sam's Club utilizing ClickHouse very quickly."
"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."
"The tool's most valuable feature is a database. It supports portal APIs and offers good flexibility."
"ClickHouse is a user-friendly solution that tries to be compatible with SQL standards."
"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 helps us in detecting all kinds of problems in the code, such as bad quality, unclear code, or any violation in the code or best practices."
"We are happy with the event capabilities of Firebird SQL database. We can raise events from it and display them in our application."
"I can deploy it on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows — it's very easy."
"The most valuable feature of Firebird SQL is the creation of databases."
"Robustness is the absolutely main feature."
"The reliability and ease of management are very valuable."
"The product was easy to use."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution and can run on most operating systems, such as Linux, Unix, and Windows."
 

Cons

"The main issue is the lack of documentation. Many features are available but are not fully documented, which can make finding information challenging."
"One issue is that you need persistent volumes. Otherwise, if one system goes down, you lose data in that cluster."
"ClickHouse has its own concept of database triggers and doesn't support traditional database triggers."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I would like ClickHouse to work more on integration with third-party tools."
"The main feature I expect is to be able to work with different databases at the same time because that's a wishlist item for me."
"The security of the users could improve in Firebird SQL."
"Database sharing is a capability that Firebird SQL lacks."
"It would be good to have more automation and integration with the tools from other vendors."
"On large databases, we have some difficulties."
"It would be nice to have a graphical user interface to handle the product."
"This solution isn't very user-friendly, or intuitive, which could be improved when it is developed."
"Technical support and performance could be better. We have some problems with this solution, but we don't know if the problem is with the database or the configuration. For example, sometimes, the users can't access the database."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We used the free, community version of ClickHouse."
"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."
"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."
"The tool is open-source."
"ClickHouse Cloud is not expensive compared to other databases, costing a few dollars per month while providing fast performance."
"It's open-source and free."
"There is a yearly maintenance fee for the use of the solution."
"There is no licensing cost for this solution, as it is open-source."
"The tool is open source."
"It is a public domain system as every customer can install it on their system without paying any license fee."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is freely available."
"I was using the free version of Firebird SQL."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution, which means it is a free product."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Educational Organization
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
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?
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...
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 Firebird SQL?
Firebird SQL is an open-source solution.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Elekt Labs, Streamsoft, wobe-systems GmbH, DRB Systems, Moscow City Hospital #31
Find out what your peers are saying about ClickHouse vs. Firebird SQL and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.