ClickHouse Reviews

Our use cases are for data analytics, both real-time and batch, and also for logging Clickstream data.

We use it in our organization. We have it in our production environment.

The query engine is super fast. We deploy ClickHouse on our Kubernetes cluster, not as a cloud subscription, so it's easy to scale with the deployment.

Some features, like connecting to third-party applications or the cloud, could be better.

I have been using it for one year. 

One issue is that you need persistent volumes. Otherwise, if one system goes down, you lose data in that cluster. 

Another issue is performance. You have to make sure you have the right configurations; otherwise, it will lead to queuing where all your jobs get queued.

It is a scalable product. 

You only get technical support when you take the cloud subscription. If you have it in-house, you won't get any support. If you have a cloud subscription, then the support is pretty good. You can raise a ticket from the UI, and they will respond within 24 hours.

So, the support team is pretty good but there is a little room for improvement. 

Neutral

The initial setup is pretty difficult since we deployed it in-house. We didn't use the cloud subscription, so we have to handle the deployment very carefully.

The challenge was deploying it and having the replication concept working. Another challenging feature is persistent volumes. You have to make sure the data is available on all clusters; otherwise, if one cluster goes down, you'll lose all your data. It's better to have it replicated.

We first used the cloud subscription, but we saw a possibility to reduce costs, so we tried deploying the open-source ClickHouse on-premises. That saved us money, but we didn't get all the features that come with the subscription.

We did it in-house.

Pricing for the cloud version is alright, not very costly or cheap. 

But if you have an in-house deployment on Kubernetes or something, it's going to be very cheap since you'll be managing everything.

I would tell other users to do a POC because it depends upon the business use case and the data. They can explore first. There's another open-source option called Apache Druid, which is a little better than ClickHouse. If that doesn't fit the use case, then they could go for ClickHouse.

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. 

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. So, if your use case is real-time or logging or real-time dashboarding, then ClickHouse is a tool to consider. Otherwise, if it's batch processing and you can expect some latency, then you should go for other databases.

I do not use the tool myself. Our developers and data analysts use it. 

The tool's most valuable feature is a database. It supports portal APIs and offers good flexibility. While it may not be the best on the market, it is the best open-source solution we have tried. It has a development community and good documentation, though not all is published. 

The tool's integration with other tools is not complex. We use it alongside Kafka and Tableau. 

I have been using the product for four years. 

Every customer I've worked with over the past few years uses ClickHouse, including many Russian companies and those related to Russia.

I have some experience talking with the tech support team. It was an open-source project at one point, so I used community resources for help. The best way to communicate with them was through their program channel, which had support available in both English and Russian.

Regarding the initial installation, setup, and deployment, I can say it's easy for someone with my engineering skills. I prefer managing the installation myself rather than relying on out-of-the-box solutions.

ClickHouse is good for analytics. Using ClickHouse is beneficial if you understand its specific purpose and advantages. Many engineers and developers mistakenly think it is an alternative to AWS databases like Postgres or MySQL, but it's not. ClickHouse has a different architecture and purpose, primarily excelling at analytical queries rather than traditional CRUD operations.

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. As an infrastructure engineer, it shouldn't be hard either.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

During my experience Clickhouse was used primary for companies analytics. At the same time I had a chance to apply it for various other use-case, such as log and storage metrics, Clickhouse as an ETL engine, monitorin, alerting and many more

ClickHouse is a user-friendly solution that tries to be compatible with SQL standards. It also tries to provide command-line tools, very nice formatting, libraries. And of course blazing speed it is main selling point of this technology

I would like ClickHouse to work more on integration with third-party tools. The solution has a lot of integrations, but most of them are not completed or production-ready.

The solution's setup requires some work and understanding. People at the company do not fully understand how to use ClickHouse. They try to use it like any relational database, which causes a lot of problems.

I have been using ClickHouse since 2018

We have experienced small bugs many times with the solution. Five years ago, the tool wasn't so stable. Now, it's better, but bugs still happen.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten for stability.

ClickHouse is a very scalable solution because it is designed to be scalable out of the box. There are some issues with scalability because, by design, ClickHouse does not support data rebalancing. I work at a start-up where around ten users use the solution.

I rate the solution’s scalability a nine out of ten.

I have never interacted with the solution's technical support because I usually use the open-source version of ClickHouse. You can post your issue on GitHub at any time, and you will usually get a response.

Positive

Currently, ClickHouse provides a cloud-based solution that you can use in the cloud. ClickHouse has an open-source version, which is free to use and has almost all the features.

ClickHouse provides the best real-time query performance in the market if it is used properly. Generally, ClickHouse is not so easy to use because it's designed in such a way that you should be aware of the infrastructure. The solution is complicated, but it is easy for someone with experience and knowledge. I would recommend the solution to other users.

ClickHouse is a magnificent solution, but users should first read a few articles about it to understand how to use it properly and how not to use it. Users should take a learning course to be aware of its architecture and to use it properly.

Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.