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ClickHouse vs Firebird SQL 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 (10th)
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 (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of ClickHouse is 5.7%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Firebird SQL is 15.2%, down from 20.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Firebird SQL15.2%
ClickHouse5.7%
Other79.1%
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.
Ruben Conti - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance for up to a hundred end users, open source and easy to setup
Firebird can compete with well-known names like Oracle and SQL Server when you don't have more than a few hundred thousand users. It's a level below SQL Server, and the application of SQL is a kind of database you can rely on for situations where you don't have too much information to deal with. For example, you can use it for the internet or national projects, but when you have millions of users, then it's not possible for other services.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main feature of ClickHouse is the optimizer because we had too many records to deduplicate, and the optimizer took this task by itself."
"The tool's most valuable feature is a database. It supports portal APIs and offers good flexibility."
"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 a user-friendly solution that tries to be compatible with SQL standards."
"It's easier to work with big data and calculations using the product."
"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 open source with no vendor lock-in, providing excellent freedom to choose any vendor without restrictions."
"The solution is very useful for stock management."
"The product was easy to use."
"It helps us in detecting all kinds of problems in the code, such as bad quality, unclear code, or any violation in the code or best practices."
"The most valuable feature of Firebird SQL is the creation of databases."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is reliable, offers good performance, and is easy to use."
"I can deploy it on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows — it's very easy."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution."
"The reliability and ease of management are very valuable."
 

Cons

"ClickHouse has its own concept of database triggers and doesn't support traditional database triggers."
"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."
"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."
"I would like ClickHouse to work more on integration with third-party tools."
"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."
"One issue is that you need persistent volumes. Otherwise, if one system goes down, you lose data in that cluster."
"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."
"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 good to have more automation and integration with the tools from other vendors."
"This solution isn't very user-friendly, or intuitive, which could be improved when it is developed."
"Database sharing is a capability that Firebird SQL lacks."
"The security of the users could improve in Firebird SQL."
"The main feature I expect is to be able to work with different databases at the same time because that's a wishlist item for me."
"It is not easy to integrate the tool with Visual Studio."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize 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...
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: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.