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ClickHouse vs Firebird SQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 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
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (7th)
Firebird SQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 6.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Firebird SQL is 13.3%, down from 19.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Firebird SQL13.3%
ClickHouse6.5%
Other80.2%
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Yush Mittal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer1991775 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chapter Lead at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
An open-source database to hold customer data, but its performance should be improved
Firebird SQL significantly improved our data management in many parts of our self-developed ERP system. I rate the solution's performance and speed a six out of ten. Two or three database administrators are needed to maintain the solution. A few years ago, migrating data to or from Firebird SQL was a little bit difficult because the identifier names for tables or stored procedures were limited to 20 to 30 characters. Transferring the structure to Firebird SQL was difficult, but they fixed it in version 3, which was much easier. We are developing software with Delphi, and Delphi is also by Embarcadero. Using InterBase or Firebird SQL databases is very common, and you have some good tools for developing with Firebird SQL. Overall, I rate the solution a seven 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

"It's easier to work with big data and calculations using the product."
"ClickHouse is open source with no vendor lock-in, providing excellent freedom to choose any vendor without restrictions."
"The tool's most valuable feature is a database. It supports portal APIs and offers good flexibility."
"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 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 a user-friendly solution that tries to be compatible with SQL standards."
"There is no better option than ClickHouse in all OLAP-based databases, so I think it is best to use ClickHouse in that regard."
"The reliability and ease of management are very valuable."
"The product was easy to use."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution and can run on most operating systems, such as Linux, Unix, and Windows."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is reliable, offers good performance, and is easy to use."
"The documentation is very well written."
"I appreciate the fact that, once the database is embedded, it doesn't need to be administered, and removes the requirement for a specific server."
"I like that we don't have to pay external fees to migrate this data. So, we are looking to relocate from Postgres or EDB."
"The solution is very useful for stock management."
 

Cons

"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 has its own concept of database triggers and doesn't support traditional database triggers."
"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."
"One issue is that you need persistent volumes. Otherwise, if one system goes down, you lose data in that cluster."
"Too many issues exist for beginners to set up ClickHouse. Many parameters must be configured, such as maximum scatter part settings that determine when writing to a table stops."
"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 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."
"We would like to improve the management of very large databases."
"Technical support and performance could be better. We have some problems with this solution, but we don't know if the problem is with the database or the configuration. For example, sometimes, the users can't access the database."
"Firebird SQL's performance has slowed since Firebird SQL 3 or 3.5 versions, where they developed over-the-wire encryption."
"Database sharing is a capability that Firebird SQL lacks."
"The solution could improve by providing partitioning and encryption. It is not at the higher level of database solution but it could be with some upgrades."
"On large databases, we have some difficulties."
"In the next release, it should support JSON, XML, and replication with third-party tools."
"It would be nice to have a graphical user interface to handle the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We used the free, community version of ClickHouse."
"ClickHouse has an open-source version, which is free to use and has almost all the features."
"If you have an in-house deployment on Kubernetes or something, it's going to be very cheap since you'll be managing everything."
"The tool is open-source."
"ClickHouse Cloud is not expensive compared to other databases, costing a few dollars per month while providing fast performance."
"The tool is free."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is freely available."
"We are using the free solution, so there is no cost involved."
"It is okay."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution, which means it is a free product."
"It is a public domain system as every customer can install it on their system without paying any license fee."
"There is a yearly maintenance fee for the use of the solution."
"It's open-source and free."
"I was using the free version of Firebird SQL."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
 

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...
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 ...
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...
How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...
What do you like most about Firebird SQL?
Firebird SQL is an open-source solution.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Elekt Labs, Streamsoft, wobe-systems GmbH, DRB Systems, Moscow City Hospital #31
Find out what your peers are saying about ClickHouse vs. Firebird SQL and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.