ClickHouse

ClickHouse

ClickHouse is an open-source column-oriented database management system that is focused on fast analytics queries using SQL. It is schema-free and can ingest huge volumes of data very quickly.
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analytics big-data sql

ClickHouse: Open-Source Column-Oriented DB for Fast Analytics Queries

Open-source column-oriented database management system for fast analytics queries using SQL, schema-free and high data ingestion rates

What is ClickHouse?

ClickHouse is an open-source column-oriented database management system (DBMS) developed by the Russian IT company Yandex for online analytical processing (OLAP) queries on big data. It supports SQL and is optimized for fast aggregations of large datasets.

The main features of ClickHouse include:

  • Column-oriented storage for efficient encoding and data compression
  • Distributed and fault-tolerant architecture that scales horizontally
  • Query processing optimized for read speed on big data instead of read-write balancing
  • Schema-free design that allows flexible data ingestion from a variety of sources
  • SQL support with additional extensions and operators for analytics
  • Interconnectivity with popular business analytics tools like Tableau, Power BI, and others

ClickHouse is typically used for handling high volumes of incoming facts and events, real-time analytics, generating aggregations and reports, exploratory data analysis, and more. It is often part of larger big data pipelines. The schema flexibility and fast queries make ClickHouse suited for time-series workloads as well.

Overall, ClickHouse excels at fast aggregations and ad-hoc queries over huge datasets for analytics use cases where write speed is not as critical.

ClickHouse Features

Features

  1. Column-oriented storage for efficient analytics
  2. SQL support for querying data
  3. Schema-free for flexible data ingestion
  4. Designed for fast ingestion of large data volumes
  5. High performance and scalability with distributed query processing
  6. Real-time analytics with fast query response times
  7. Data compression for reduced storage costs
  8. Open source with Apache 2.0 license

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Very fast for analytics queries

Scales to huge data volumes

Flexible schema allows easy data ingestion

Cost-effective due to compression

Active open source community support

Cons

Not ideal for transactional workloads

Limited ecosystem compared to alternatives

Steep learning curve for configuration and tuning

Lacks some enterprise features like BI connectors


The Best ClickHouse Alternatives

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