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ClickHouse vs Grafana Tempo

ClickHouse: Open-source columnar OLAP database known for very fast aggregations over billions of rows. Grafana Tempo: Object-storage-backed distributed tracing backend with TraceQL search and trace-derived metrics.

key differences

  • Licensing: ClickHouse is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0); Grafana Tempo is open source (copyleft) (GNU AGPL v3.0).
  • Transactions: ClickHouse offers limited ACID; Grafana Tempo offers none.
  • Only ClickHouse has joins, secondary indexes, full-text search, vector search, geospatial.
  • ClickHouse has a serverless option; Grafana Tempo does not.

choose clickhouse for

  • +Product and web analytics
  • +Log and observability backends
  • +Real-time dashboards over event streams
  • +Time-series and IoT metrics at scale

best at · Real-time analytics, OLAP, Observability

choose grafana-tempo for

  • +Distributed tracing for microservices
  • +Storing full-fidelity OpenTelemetry traces
  • +Deriving service-level metrics from spans

best at · Observability

ClickHouseOpen-source columnar OLAP database known for very fast aggregations over billions of rows.
Grafana TempoObject-storage-backed distributed tracing backend with TraceQL search and trace-derived metrics.
overview
Primary model
Columnar / OLAP
Columnar / OLAP
Also supports
Relational, Document, Vector, Time-Series
Time-Series
Type
Database engine
Database engine
Status
Active
Active
Developer
ClickHouse, Inc.
Grafana Labs
First release
2016
2020
Latest version
26.10.2.103 (Oct 24, 2026)
3.1.1 (Oct 21, 2026)
License
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0
Open source (copyleft)GNU AGPL v3.0
Free tier
✓
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
69.8
14.1
Rank
#10
#239
GitHub stars
50.6K
5.5K
Stack Overflow questions
2.2K
25
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Massive (Multi-PB)
Massive (Multi-PB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
Native
Multi-region
Read replicas
None
ACID
Limited
None
Consistency
Eventual
Eventual
Schema
Strict
Schemaless
Architecture
Distributed, Shared storage, Single node, Client server
Single node, Distributed, Shared storage
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
✓
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Aiven
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
capabilities
Transactions
—
—
Joins
✓
—
Secondary indexes
✓
—
Full-text search
✓
—
Vector search
✓
—
Geospatial
✓
—
JSON
✓
—
Change data capture
—
—
Triggers
—
—
Stored procedures
—
—
Materialized views
✓
—
TTL / expiry
✓
✓
Pub/Sub
—
—
Columnar storage
✓
✓
In-memory
—
—
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
✓
✓
Encryption at rest
✓
—
Role-based access
✓
—
Time travel
—
—
Branching
—
—
Online schema changes
✓
—
Streaming ingest
✓
✓
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
SQL (ClickHouse dialect), PRQL, KQL (experimental)
TraceQL
Client languages
Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, Rust, C++, C#
–
Best for
Real-time analytics, OLAP, Observability, Warehouse
Observability
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

ClickHouse vs Grafana Tempo: FAQ

What is the difference between ClickHouse and Grafana Tempo?

ClickHouse: Open-source columnar OLAP database known for very fast aggregations over billions of rows. Grafana Tempo: Object-storage-backed distributed tracing backend with TraceQL search and trace-derived metrics. Licensing: ClickHouse is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0); Grafana Tempo is open source (copyleft) (GNU AGPL v3.0). Transactions: ClickHouse offers limited ACID; Grafana Tempo offers none. Only ClickHouse has joins, secondary indexes, full-text search, vector search, geospatial.

When should I choose ClickHouse over Grafana Tempo?

Choose ClickHouse for product and web analytics; log and observability backends; and real-time dashboards over event streams. Choose Grafana Tempo for distributed tracing for microservices, storing full-fidelity OpenTelemetry traces and deriving service-level metrics from spans.

Is ClickHouse or Grafana Tempo more popular?

ClickHouse ranks #10 on the WhichDB Score (69.8/100) and Grafana Tempo ranks #239 (14.1/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are ClickHouse and Grafana Tempo open source?

Yes. ClickHouse is open source. License: Apache License 2.0. Yes. Grafana Tempo is open source. License: GNU AGPL v3.0.