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ClickHouse vs Firebird SQL comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 1, 2026

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
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (8th)
Firebird SQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 6.4%, up from 5.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Firebird SQL is 9.9%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ClickHouse6.4%
Firebird SQL9.9%
Other83.7%
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2785038 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Data Engineer at a transportation company with 501-1,000 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.
SS
Research and Development Project Manager at Sixense Monitoring
Efficient data storage with reliable and easy management
We are working on monitoring software that involves making a lot of measurements with sensors. We store all the data in Firebird, which is why we use It primarily for data storage It's difficult to describe how it has improved our organization because we have been using Firebird for a very long…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool is column-based and infinitely scalable."
"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."
"ClickHouse is open source with no vendor lock-in, providing excellent freedom to choose any vendor without restrictions."
"ClickHouse Cloud saves a lot of time for our DevOps engineers since there isn't much deployment involved and everything is served directly, leading to increased efficiency and productivity."
"ClickHouse has reduced our storage cost and improved our 99th percentile latency by 40%."
"ClickHouse is a user-friendly solution that tries to be compatible with SQL standards."
"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."
"I like Firebird because it's very lightweight; it's very light and powerful, and I can do everything that I can with MS SQL Server and Oracle with Firebird, with very easy deployment on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows and great integration capabilities."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Firebird SQL is the creation of databases."
"We are happy with the event capabilities of Firebird SQL database. We can raise events from it and display them in our application."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is reliable, offers good performance, and is easy to use."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution."
"The product was easy to use."
"The reliability and ease of management are very valuable."
 

Cons

"ClickHouse could be improved with self-hosting capabilities and better documentation for how to host it at scale."
"I would like ClickHouse to work more on integration with third-party tools."
"Initially, I faced challenges integrating ClickHouse, particularly with inserting data from ActiveMQ, which caused duplicates. However, after adjusting the ClickHouse settings, the issue was resolved and there were no more duplicates."
"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."
"The main issue is the lack of documentation. Many features are available but are not fully documented, which can make finding information challenging."
"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."
"There aren't too many improvements I'd suggest for ClickHouse as it covers all my needs. There are just a few technical issues. For example, sometimes, when you want to get unique values and use certain tables, they don't work as expected. But it's not a major problem."
"I'd rate the solution five or six out of ten for the possibilities it has currently."
"Database sharing is a capability that Firebird SQL lacks."
"It would be good to have more automation and integration with the tools from other vendors."
"It would be nice to have a graphical user interface to handle the product."
"It is not easy to integrate the tool with Visual Studio."
"The security of the users could improve in Firebird SQL."
"Firebird SQL's performance has slowed since Firebird SQL 3 or 3.5 versions, where they developed over-the-wire encryption."
"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."
 

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."
"The tool is open-source."
"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."
"ClickHouse Cloud is not expensive compared to other databases, costing a few dollars per month while providing fast performance."
"The tool is free."
"There is no licensing cost for this solution, as it is open-source."
"I was using the free version of Firebird SQL."
"We are using the free solution, so there is no cost involved."
"It is a public domain system as every customer can install it on their system without paying any license fee."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution, which means it is a free product."
"It's open-source and free."
"There is a yearly maintenance fee for the use of the solution."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is freely available."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
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 needs improvement with Firebird SQL?
We would like to improve the management of very large databases. We have databases up to three or four terabytes, and it's not so easy to manage such large databases.
What is your primary use case for Firebird SQL?
We are working on monitoring software that involves making a lot of measurements with sensors. We store all the data in Firebird, which is why we use It primarily for data storage.
 

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: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.