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ClickHouse vs MariaDB 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)
MariaDB
Ranking in Open Source Databases
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (5th)
 

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 MariaDB is 6.7%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
MariaDB6.7%
ClickHouse5.7%
Other87.6%
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.
KumarManish - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, cost-effective, and integrates seamlessly with other products
We had planned for an RDBMS version and not NoSQL. We use MariaDB Galera Cluster. It's a good product. It is cheap, scalable, performs well, and is efficient. We use GCP’s BigQuery for machine learning. We must follow the best practices of the tool. We missed some best practices like the storage engine and InnoDB. It was very difficult to identify why we were having performance issues. Then, we realized that some of our tables were still on MyISAM, the default storage engine. When we switched it back to the InnoDB, it was very smooth. InnoDB is the recommended one. We must follow the best practices given in the documentation during the initial setup. Overall, I rate the product a nine 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

"We faced a challenge with deploying ClickHouse onto Kubernetes. Recently, we've been using ClickHouse Cloud, and the main issue is the high cost of the cloud service. The pricing isn't very competitive, especially for startups. I would instead buy a server and self-host if I have enough disk space. Besides that, ClickHouse has done very well, with clear goals and effective execution."
"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."
"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."
"It's easier to work with big data and calculations using the product."
"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."
"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 much faster than traditional databases like MySQL and MongoDB. Its column-row searching strategy makes it very efficient. With ClickHouse, we can manage multiple databases, automatically insert data from other databases and delete data as needed. It supports real-time query performance, allowing simultaneous data insertion and retrieval. ClickHouse has improved significantly over the past two years, adding more functions and queries, as well as top functionality."
"The product has been stable and reliable."
"Configuration, setup, and schema design are good features in MariaDB, and typical database features we have used include backup, configuration, recovery, archiving, and ETL."
"It is a stable solution."
"What I like best about MariaDB is that it is open-source and reliable."
"From the user's perspective, the performance of the columnar queries is very good in terms of the database when comparing it to the Oracle, and MySQL."
"One of the great features of MariaDB is its scalability. It's easy to handle even with large databases."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source product and offers its users great online community support."
"The solution runs very quickly. It's not slow at all."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"ClickHouse has its own concept of database triggers and doesn't support traditional database triggers."
"We had a lot of troubles while deploying a whole cluster."
"I would like ClickHouse to work more on integration with third-party tools."
"The main issue is the lack of documentation. Many features are available but are not fully documented, which can make finding information challenging."
"Maria DB has to improve from a management perspective."
"Document caching is an area of concern in the product, where improvements are required to help MariaDB improve on the previous queries as they are retained, and you can roll back to them."
"MariaDB can improve by adding more features. There are a lot of features, which are available in Oracle, and which are not available in MariaDB. We hope they will introduce the features soon."
"I would like to see more compatibility going forward. This would help if there is a need to change databases."
"In future releases, mainly the addition of security features would be beneficial for MariaDB."
"The interface should be more user-friendly. It should be able to connect directly to the database and Interact with it without having to use commands. It needs better integration."
"MariaDB doesn't handle long or complex SQL queries quite as well as Oracle Database."
"Data continuity could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ClickHouse Cloud is not expensive compared to other databases, costing a few dollars per month while providing fast performance."
"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 free."
"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."
"The solution is free, but if you want the enterprise version you will need to pay for some licenses but the cost is less than other solutions, such as Oracle."
"I used the open-source version, which is available free of charge."
"This is an open-source product, which can be used free of charge."
"MariaDB is an open-source software, meaning I don't need to pay for the product."
"We use the solution's free version."
"My company uses the free version of the solution."
"MariaDB is available for free."
"It's an open-source solution."
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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
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise25
 

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...
What do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
I have found the price of commercial MariaDB to be pretty steep, although not as high as Oracle. Customers often prefer the Community Edition because it's free.
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
The only potential area for improvement could be the pricing model, which might benefit from being more flexible or a bit cheaper.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Find out what your peers are saying about ClickHouse vs. MariaDB and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.