vs

ClickHouse vs Infobright

ClickHouse: Open-source columnar OLAP database known for very fast aggregations over billions of rows. Infobright: Compressed columnar analytics engine on a MySQL front end, now sold by IgniteTech as Infobright AI.

key differences

  • Licensing: ClickHouse is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0); Infobright is proprietary (Proprietary (Community Edition was GPL until 2016)).
  • ClickHouse is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Infobright (≤ 10 TB).
  • Horizontal scaling is native in ClickHouse and none in Infobright.
  • Only ClickHouse has secondary indexes, full-text search, vector search, geospatial, json.
  • ClickHouse has a serverless option; Infobright 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 infobright for

  • +Existing deployments for log and machine-data analytics
  • +Embedded analytics in OEM appliances

best at · OLAP, Warehouse, Observability

overview
Primary model
Columnar / OLAP
Columnar / OLAP
Also supports
Relational, Document, Vector, Time-Series
Relational
Type
Database engine
Database engine
Status
Active
Active
Developer
ClickHouse, Inc.
IgniteTech (originally Infobright Inc.)
First release
2016
2005
Latest version
26.10.2.103 (Oct 24, 2026)
–
License
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0
ProprietaryProprietary (Community Edition was GPL until 2016)
Free tier
✓
—
popularity
WhichDB Score
69.8
4.4
Rank
#10
#406
GitHub stars
50.6K
–
Stack Overflow questions
2.2K
–
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Massive (Multi-PB)
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
None
Multi-region
Read replicas
None
ACID
Limited
Limited
Consistency
Eventual
Strong
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Distributed, Shared storage, Single node, Client server
Single node, Client server
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
—
Serverless
✓
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Aiven
–
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)
SQL
Client languages
Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, Rust, C++, C#
C, Java, Python, PHP
Best for
Real-time analytics, OLAP, Observability, Warehouse
OLAP, Warehouse, Observability

ClickHouse vs Infobright: FAQ

What is the difference between ClickHouse and Infobright?

ClickHouse: Open-source columnar OLAP database known for very fast aggregations over billions of rows. Infobright: Compressed columnar analytics engine on a MySQL front end, now sold by IgniteTech as Infobright AI. Licensing: ClickHouse is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0); Infobright is proprietary (Proprietary (Community Edition was GPL until 2016)). ClickHouse is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Infobright (≤ 10 TB). Horizontal scaling is native in ClickHouse and none in Infobright.

When should I choose ClickHouse over Infobright?

Choose ClickHouse for product and web analytics; log and observability backends; and real-time dashboards over event streams. Choose Infobright for existing deployments for log and machine-data analytics; and embedded analytics in OEM appliances.

Is ClickHouse or Infobright more popular?

ClickHouse ranks #10 on the WhichDB Score (69.8/100) and Infobright ranks #406 (4.4/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are ClickHouse and Infobright open source?

Yes. ClickHouse is open source. License: Apache License 2.0. No. Infobright is proprietary, closed-source software.