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ClickHouse vs MariaDB 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
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (10th)
MariaDB
Ranking in Open Source Databases
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 3.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 6.7%, down from 11.7% 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.
KumarManish - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, cost-effective, and integrates seamlessly with other products
We had planned for an RDBMS version and not NoSQL. We use MariaDB Galera Cluster. It's a good product. It is cheap, scalable, performs well, and is efficient. We use GCP’s BigQuery for machine learning. We must follow the best practices of the tool. We missed some best practices like the storage engine and InnoDB. It was very difficult to identify why we were having performance issues. Then, we realized that some of our tables were still on MyISAM, the default storage engine. When we switched it back to the InnoDB, it was very smooth. InnoDB is the recommended one. We must follow the best practices given in the documentation during the initial setup. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ClickHouse is a user-friendly solution that tries to be compatible with SQL standards."
"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 open source with no vendor lock-in, providing excellent freedom to choose any vendor without restrictions."
"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."
"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."
"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 a very easy product to set up."
"It is an absolutely stable solution."
"There is the need for a robust IDE for MongoDB. The existing PHP admin console doesn't meet the client's requirements effectively."
"The most valuable feature is that it uses multiple cores, which is better than some of the other databases."
"Installation is straightforward."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source product and offers its users great online community support."
"I like the global transaction IDs (GTIDs) feature. It's quite reliable for replication between a master and a replica server, and it's a feature that MySQL also has but implemented differently."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the query speed it offers."
 

Cons

"One issue is that you need persistent volumes. Otherwise, if one system goes down, you lose data in that 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."
"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."
"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."
"I would like ClickHouse to work more on integration with third-party tools."
"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."
"The main issue is the lack of documentation. Many features are available but are not fully documented, which can make finding information challenging."
"I’m not sure if it can scale."
"The interface should be more user-friendly. It should be able to connect directly to the database and Interact with it without having to use commands. It needs better integration."
"When we have had issues with accidental computer shutdown or a power outage, our MariaDB database was corrupted."
"There is not much support available."
"The ability to create stored procedures in MariaDB is an area where the tool lacks a bit."
"Data continuity could be improved."
"An improvement would be scaling it up to the levels of Oracle, especially when it comes to resilience, so that we can do higher transactions for two databases or power our operation."
"Document caching is an area of concern in the product, where improvements are required to help MariaDB improve on the previous queries as they are retained, and you can roll back to them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ClickHouse Cloud is not expensive compared to other databases, costing a few dollars per month while providing fast performance."
"ClickHouse has an open-source version, which is free to use and has almost all the features."
"The tool is free."
"We used the free, community version of ClickHouse."
"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."
"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 cost is quite good. You can have the open source, free version, which has adequate capacity."
"There is a monthly subscription to use MariaDB."
"The product is not expensive."
"When it comes to MariaDB, it should have a more cost-effective license."
"The price of this solution represents a very good compromise between the cost and what it offers."
"We use the solution's free version."
"MariaDB is available for free."
"MariaDB is a free-to-use solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Educational Organization
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

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 ...
What do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
I have found the price of commercial MariaDB to be pretty steep, although not as high as Oracle. Customers often prefer the Community Edition because it's free.
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
The only potential area for improvement could be the pricing model, which might benefit from being more flexible or a bit cheaper.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Find out what your peers are saying about ClickHouse vs. MariaDB and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.