shouldiuse.io

Categories

VERDICT

ClickHouse Review

Depends

Should I use ClickHouse?

Fast open-source column-oriented database for real-time analytical reporting with SQL - clickhouse.com

· 1 month ago

Buy if your team queries billions of rows and has data-engineering capacity to run it. Skip if you need a simple app database or light dashboards.

Confidence

High. Based on 40+ public sources: reviews, Reddit threads, official docs, security advisories, and funding news.

Ratings

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Feature depth
  • Support qualitySupport program exists but no quality evidence
  • Security posture

Pricing

Self-hosted (open source)

Free software, infra costs only

ModelNot disclosed
Monthly feesNot disclosed
HardwareNot disclosed
ClickHouse CloudPay-as-you-go usage-based

Best for

  • Real-time analytics on billions of rows
  • Observability and log analytics at scale
  • User-facing embedded analytics
  • SQL-fluent data teams

Not for

  • Small apps needing a simple CRUD database
  • Teams with no dedicated data or ops engineers
  • Transactional (OLTP) workloads
  • Anyone wanting spreadsheet-grade reporting

Gotchas - check before you buy

medium

Cloud pricing separates compute and storage; heavy ingest drives costs up

medium

ClickPipes streaming ingest is billed separately from compute credits

medium

Self-hosting is free but shifts all operational burden onto your team

low

Cloud-vs-self-host cost comparisons vary widely; model your workload first

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Extremely fast, stable analytics; ingestion praised at scale
  • Open source and self-hostable; users call it dirt cheap
  • Practitioners rank it above most alternatives for OLAP
  • Proven at petabyte scale by long-term operators
  • Strong adoption: 4,000+ customers, $250M ARR

Cons

  • Limited native GUI tooling, per G2 reviewers
  • Documented operational drawbacks and gotchas at petabyte scale
  • History of serious vulnerabilities requiring prompt patching

Sources & method

- 9 sources - Active project with a security changelog; several CVEs disclosed over the years, including RCE and SSRF issues.

official x2review x4security x2news x1
  • CVE-2025-1386: SSRF in ch-go library, Server-side request forgery flaw in the ClickHouse Go library.
  • CVE-2025-1385: input validation failure, Fail input validation in clickhouse-library bridge component.
  • CVE-2024-22412, Vulnerability disclosed via NIST NVD; fixed in later releases.
  • 7 RCE and DoS vulnerabilities (2022), JFrog research found remote code execution and denial-of-service flaws; since patched.

Key stats

  • Value for money: 4/5

    Rating

  • Free software, infra costs only

    Starting price

  • 9

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 4/5. Users call it dirt cheap; cloud usage costs can climb
  • Ease of use: 3/5. G2 reviewers cite limited native GUI tooling
  • Feature depth: 5/5. Real-time SQL analytics, materialized views, streaming ingest
  • Support quality. Support program exists but no quality evidence
  • Security posture: 3/5. Past RCE/DoS CVEs; active security changelog
  • 4.5/5 Review rating aggregated across review sites
  • 4,000+ Customers $250M ARR
  • $15B Valuation Jan 2026, per Bloomberg
  • $1.1B Total funding across 4 rounds

Pricing

Self-hosted (open source)

Free software, infra costs only

  • Full engine
  • You run and scale it

ClickHouse Cloud

Pay-as-you-go usage-based

  • Compute and storage billed separately
  • ClickPipes ingest billed separately

Security

Active project with a security changelog; several CVEs disclosed over the years, including RCE and SSRF issues.

  • CVE-2025-1386: SSRF in ch-go libraryServer-side request forgery flaw in the ClickHouse Go library.
  • CVE-2025-1385: input validation failureFail input validation in clickhouse-library bridge component.
  • CVE-2024-22412Vulnerability disclosed via NIST NVD; fixed in later releases.⁷
  • 7 RCE and DoS vulnerabilities (2022)JFrog research found remote code execution and denial-of-service flaws; since patched.⁶

Alternatives

Compare ClickHouse with each alternative.

Companies that use it

Full analysis

Based on 40+ public sources: reviews, Reddit threads, official docs, security advisories, and funding news.

Elite open-source OLAP engine for massive analytical workloads; operationally heavy overkill for small apps or simple reporting.

Methodology

Based on 40+ public sources: reviews, Reddit threads, official docs, security advisories, and funding news.

Read how a report is made.

Sources

  1. ClickHouse Cloud Reviews & Ratings 2026gartner.com
    review
  2. Is Clickhouse a good choice? — r/dataengineeringreddit.com
    review
  3. ClickHouse at PB Scale: Drawbacks and Gotchasreddit.com
    review
  4. ClickHouse tops $250M ARR and 4000 customersclickhouse.com
    official
  5. ClickHouse lands $15B valuationbloomberg.com
    news
  6. 7 RCE and DoS vulnerabilities in ClickHousejfrog.com
    security
  7. CVE-2024-22412 — NIST NVDnvd.nist.gov
    security
  8. ClickHouse Pricingclickhouse.com
    official
  9. ClickHouse Reviews, Pricing & Featurescheckthat.ai
    review

Add this review to your site

This check for ClickHouse says Depends.

Put the badge on your site.

Visitors see the independent review.

The link points here, and search engines follow it.

This is the badge visitors see on your site.

Depends ClickHouse Independent review on Should I Use It

Paste one snippet. Keep the link as it is. A nofollow tag stops search engines from following it.

Rate this review

Anonymous. You can change your vote.

Loading votes…

Comments

One queue. No nested comments. Give a display name first. Limit: 200 words per comment and 7 comments per day. You can edit or delete yours.

Save a name to write a comment.

0 / 200 words

No comments yet.