ClickHouse vs StarRocks

ClickHouse: Open-source columnar OLAP database known for very fast aggregations over billions of rows. StarRocks: MPP OLAP database with a fast vectorized engine, real-time upserts and native lakehouse queries.

key differences

ClickHouse is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than StarRocks (≤ 1 PB).
Only ClickHouse has geospatial, encryption at rest.
ClickHouse has a serverless option; StarRocks 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 starrocks for

+Real-time dashboards with joins
+Lakehouse query acceleration over Iceberg
+Customer-facing analytics
+Replacing pre-aggregated cubes

best at · Real-time analytics, OLAP, Lakehouse

ClickHouseOpen-source columnar OLAP database known for very fast aggregations over billions of rows.

StarRocksMPP OLAP database with a fast vectorized engine, real-time upserts and native lakehouse queries.

overview

Primary model

Columnar / OLAP

Also supports

Relational, Document, Vector, Time-Series

Relational, Document, Vector

Type

Database engine

Status

Active

Developer

ClickHouse, Inc.

StarRocks (Linux Foundation; CelerData)

First release

2016

2020

Latest version

26.10.2.103 (Oct 24, 2026)

4.1.3 (Sep 17, 2026)

License

Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0

Free tier

✓

popularity

WhichDB Score

69.8

15.6

Rank

#10

#210

GitHub stars

50.6K

12.2K

Stack Overflow questions

2.2K

scale & guarantees

Comfortable data size

Massive (Multi-PB)

Large (≤ 1 PB)

Horizontal scaling

Native

Multi-region

Read replicas

None

ACID

Limited

Consistency

Eventual

Strong

Schema

Strict

Architecture

Distributed, Shared storage, Single node, Client server

Distributed, Shared storage

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 (MySQL dialect)

Client languages

Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, Rust, C++, C#

Java, Python, Go, JavaScript, C++

Best for

Real-time analytics, OLAP, Observability, Warehouse

Real-time analytics, OLAP, Lakehouse, Warehouse

Add more to this comparison Not sure either fits? Try smart match

ClickHouse vs StarRocks: FAQ

What is the difference between ClickHouse and StarRocks?

ClickHouse: Open-source columnar OLAP database known for very fast aggregations over billions of rows. StarRocks: MPP OLAP database with a fast vectorized engine, real-time upserts and native lakehouse queries. ClickHouse is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than StarRocks (≤ 1 PB). Only ClickHouse has geospatial, encryption at rest. ClickHouse has a serverless option; StarRocks does not.

When should I choose ClickHouse over StarRocks?

Choose ClickHouse for product and web analytics; log and observability backends; and real-time dashboards over event streams. Choose StarRocks for real-time dashboards with joins, lakehouse query acceleration over Iceberg and customer-facing analytics.

Is ClickHouse or StarRocks more popular?

ClickHouse ranks #10 on the WhichDB Score (69.8/100) and StarRocks ranks #210 (15.6/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are ClickHouse and StarRocks open source?

Yes. ClickHouse is open source. License: Apache License 2.0. Yes. StarRocks is open source. License: Apache License 2.0.