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ClickHouse vs SQLite 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)
SQLite
Ranking in Open Source Databases
13th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 5.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SQLite is 5.4%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ClickHouse5.3%
SQLite5.4%
Other89.3%
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.
Neeraj Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ClickHouse is open source with no vendor lock-in, providing excellent freedom to choose any vendor without restrictions."
"The main feature of ClickHouse is the optimizer because we had too many records to deduplicate, and the optimizer took this task by itself."
"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."
"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 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 is a user-friendly solution that tries to be compatible with SQL standards."
"The tool is column-based and infinitely scalable."
"It's easier to work with big data and calculations using the product."
"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 use Flutter Technology with the JSF plugin."
"SQLite’s most valuable feature is the ability to store granular-level backups of databases."
"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."
"The product is lightweight and highly scalable."
 

Cons

"I would like ClickHouse to work more on integration with third-party tools."
"One issue is that you need persistent volumes. Otherwise, if one system goes down, you lose data in that cluster."
"We had a lot of troubles while deploying a whole cluster."
"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."
"The main issue is the lack of documentation. Many features are available but are not fully documented, which can make finding information challenging."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The performance could be better."
"It could have a user-friendly GUI and better intelligence features."
"A potential drawback is that the database file stored within the application's local storage could be accessible to users."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ClickHouse Cloud is not expensive compared to other databases, costing a few dollars per month while providing fast performance."
"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."
"We used the free, community version of ClickHouse."
"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."
"I rate the product’s pricing a six out of ten."
"The tool is open-source."
"It's not expensive."
"It's a good value."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

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...
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.
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.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Oracle, Bloomberg, Bentley, Mozilla
Find out what your peers are saying about ClickHouse vs. SQLite and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.