ClickHouse vs SQLite comparison

ClickHouse and SQLite are both solutions in the Open Source Databases category. ClickHouse is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.8, while SQLite is ranked #13 with an average rating of 6.5. ClickHouse holds a 6.3% mindshare in OSD, compared to SQLite’s 5.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ClickHouse users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of SQLite users who would recommend it.

ClickHouse

Read 22 ClickHouse reviews

2,746 Views
1,675 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SQLite

Read 8 SQLite reviews

1,990 Views
1,552 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

ClickHouse

SQLite

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 23, 2025

In the database management systems category, ClickHouse seems to have the upper hand in performance and scalability, especially in OLAP scenarios, while SQLite shines in simplicity and ease of use for embedded applications.

Features: SQLite is noted for its simplicity, ease of integration, and small footprint, making it ideal for mobile and embedded devices. It supports triggers for data integrity and is known for its server-less operation and cross-platform compatibility. ClickHouse features high-speed queries with efficient data storage, an aggregation capability that benefits transaction history reviews, and real-time query performance with minimal cost, making it suitable for big data analytics.

Room for Improvement: SQLite can benefit from improved support for more complex queries and enhanced feature sets for larger-scale data applications. It could also improve documentation to better support developers unfamiliar with its operations. ClickHouse can improve by reducing the complexity of its deployment process, offering better support for mutations, and enhancing its documentation to cover all functionalities thoroughly.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SQLite provides a straightforward deployment process, requiring only library inclusion in applications, with no server required, making it ideal for simpler use cases. ClickHouse requires a more complex setup but provides robust customer support options, which aid its deployment in larger environments where higher data processing capabilities are needed.

Pricing and ROI: SQLite generally incurs lower setup costs due to its simplicity and absence of a server component, resulting in higher ROI in environments with limited budgets. ClickHouse, while potentially involving a higher initial investment due to its infrastructure requirements, delivers substantial ROI for businesses seeking advanced analytics thanks to its performance and scalability.

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

Buyer's Guide

ClickHouse vs. SQLite

December 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

6th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vector Databases (9th)

SQLite

Ranking in Open Source Databases

13th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Embedded Database (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 6.3%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQLite is 5.5%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ClickHouse	6.3%
SQLite	5.5%
Other	88.2%

Open Source Databases

Featured Reviews

Yush Mittal

Level 2 Software Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees

Data observability has enabled real‑time analytics and cost savings but needs smoother inserts and cleanup

ClickHouse could be improved concerning data insertion, especially given the high amount of data handled. Constant efforts are made to optimize the features on its own, but with merges and inserts, only a single insert query can be performed allowing for the input of only 100,000 rows per second. It would be beneficial to insert more data and have configurations that are less user-operated. Ideally, ClickHouse would optimize itself to handle these processes automatically, reducing the need to contact the ClickHouse support team for infrastructure optimization. Additionally, delays are experienced when trying to delete databases with corrupt data, taking too much time and causing major outages, which necessitate contacting multiple teams across continents for resolution. The community surrounding ClickHouse also seems limited, providing a reliance on documentation, and there is a scarcity of developers working with ClickHouse, which hinders growth. If ClickHouse were more user-friendly and technically feasible, it would likely see greater expansion in usage.

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Neeraj Tiwari

Student at Queens University Belfast

Pretty easy to execute my SQL queries but issues while uploading and importing my dataset

It was a bit easy to use compared to other tools. It's simple. I found it pretty easy to execute my SQL queries. Since I was a beginner, it was comfortable for me to learn SQL using SQLite. However, when I used it for my professional work and for my assignments, I found some complications. Maybe I'm not proficient with it, that's why. The main benefit for me was learning. Since I was new to SQL, SQLite helped me understand how to work with structured data.

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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

"ClickHouse has positively impacted my organization, as there was an entire exercise done on which database we were supposed to use for solving our problems, and we found ClickHouse was the one performing the best, which is when we adopted it."

"ClickHouse is open source with no vendor lock-in, providing excellent freedom to choose any vendor without restrictions."

"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."

"ClickHouse has positively impacted my organization by replacing PostgreSQL, which required complex foreign tables for queries, and with ClickHouse we now have Cube.js for easier data visualization."

"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 provides responses within a few seconds, typically two to three seconds, which is impressive."

"ClickHouse provides great query speeds because it is an OLAP database, so naturally, it provides higher speeds."

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

More ClickHouse pros

"The product is lightweight and highly scalable."

"It was a bit easy to use compared to other tools. It's simple. I found it pretty easy to execute my SQL queries."

"I haven't encountered any problems in my use cases. So, it has been a stable product for me."

"Sometimes, you want data to persist within the app even when there's no internet connectivity. To avoid showing blank screens, we can use SQLite to store data locally and then sync it with the cloud database when connectivity is restored."

"SQLite’s most valuable feature is the ability to store granular-level backups of databases."

"I use Flutter Technology with the JSF plugin."

Cons

"ClickHouse could be improved further in several areas."

"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."

"ClickHouse can be improved, and the main challenge I see is its operational complexity."

"ClickHouse has its own concept of database triggers and doesn't support traditional database triggers."

"The main issue is the lack of documentation. Many features are available but are not fully documented, which can make finding information challenging."

"In terms of needed improvements, some enhancements in documentation are necessary."

"ClickHouse could be improved with self-hosting capabilities and better documentation for how to host it at scale."

"I chose nine out of ten because, as I mentioned, the improvement side and the ten thousand partition limit created issues that we were hitting quite frequently, but with some schema manipulations we did manage to find a workaround, although that could have been avoided had things been better documented on how we could have solved this problem in a different approach, which took some bandwidth."

More ClickHouse cons

"Compared to other tools, the performance was less effective than that of Microsoft Access."

"I primarily use SQLite for small-scale applications due to its limitations in storing large amounts of data. For larger-scale projects, I typically opt for MySQL or other alternatives. Storing a large number of dates in SQLite can significantly impact its performance."

"The performance could be better."

"It could have a user-friendly GUI and better intelligence features."

"There are some difficulties on the server side. When syncing data with databases like SQL Server or Oracle, SQLite requires a kind of double effort."

"A potential drawback is that the database file stored within the application's local storage could be accessible to users."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We used the free, community version of ClickHouse."

"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."

"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."

"The tool is open-source."

"I rate the product’s pricing a six out of ten."

"The tool is open-source."

"It's a good value."

"It's not expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ClickHouse?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was such that the setup costs were just my own bandwidth, while licensing and pricing were done by other members of the team so it was abstract...

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What needs improvement with ClickHouse?

ClickHouse can be improved on the documentation side, and there is one small constraint that is mentioned in ClickHouse documentation, which is a partition limit of ten thousand that we hit, so if ...

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What is your primary use case for ClickHouse?

My main use case for ClickHouse is data ingestion and for its OLAP properties, as we had use cases where database locks were slowing us down and because ClickHouse does not have that, we chose to u...

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What do you like most about SQLite?

It was a bit easy to use compared to other tools. It's simple. I found it pretty easy to execute my SQL queries.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SQLite?

It is not expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SQLite?

There were some complications. For example, you have to upload the dataset into SQLite, and once it's uploaded, you might find difficulties working with it.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 18% of the time

OpenSearch vs ClickHouse

Compared 10% of the time

Cassandra vs ClickHouse

Compared 8% of the time

VictoriaMetrics vs ClickHouse

Compared 8% of the time

Faiss vs ClickHouse

Compared 3% of the time

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Firebird SQL vs SQLite

Compared 31% of the time

InfluxDB vs SQLite

Compared 9% of the time

LanceDB vs SQLite

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle Berkeley DB vs SQLite

Compared 7% of the time

PostgreSQL vs SQLite

Compared 3% of the time

More SQLite Competitors

Product Reports

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ClickHouse

December 2025

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Buyer's Guide

SQLite

December 2025

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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

SQLite is an open-source, serverless, reliable, and flexible, SQL database engine. It is particularly favored in the realm of embedded database solutions and small to medium-sized projects. Unlike traditional database systems that operate on a client-server model, SQLite is a serverless database engine, meaning it runs directly within the application it powers. This unique architecture makes SQLite an ideal choice for applications where simplicity, efficiency, and minimal configuration are paramount.

SQLite is an embedded database engine, which means it operates directly within the application that uses it, without requiring a separate server process. It is designed to be cross-platform, supporting multiple operating systems, and is is compatible with a wide range of programming languages, such as C, C++, Python, Java, and more. This makes it highly portable and suitable for a wide range of applications, from mobile devices to desktop software and web applications.

The key advantages of SQLite is its reliability, the lightweight nature and efficient performance. It has a small footprint, typically requiring only a few megabytes of disk space, and can operate entirely in memory if needed. It is designed to be reliable and robust, with built-in features such as atomic commit and rollback, which ensure data integrity even in the event of system crashes or power failures. Finally, the SQLite solution requires no configuration or setup, making it easy to use and deploy. It can be embedded directly into applications without the need for complex installation or configuration procedures.

SQLite Functionality

SQL Compliance: SQLite supports a substantial portion of the SQL standard, including features like transactions, triggers, views, and indexes.
File-based Storage: SQLite stores its entire database as a single cross-platform file on the host machine's file system.
ACID Compliance: SQLite fully supports ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) transactions, ensuring data consistency and integrity in concurrent access scenarios.

SQLite is an open-source project distributed under a public domain license, which means it can be used, modified, and distributed freely, without any licensing costs or restrictions.

To summarize, SQLite is widely used in various applications, including web browsers (e.g., Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome), mobile applications (e.g., Android, iOS), embedded systems, and desktop software. Its simplicity, portability, and efficiency make it a popular choice for developers who require a lightweight and reliable database solution, especially in resource-constrained environments or applications with modest data storage needs.

SQLite

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Oracle, Bloomberg, Bentley, Mozilla

Buyer's Guide

ClickHouse vs. SQLite

December 2025

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