ClickHouse vs. QuestDB

The most important thing when using ClickHouse is to be clear that the scenarios in which you want to use it really are the right ones. Many users think that when a database is very fast for a specific use case, it can be extrapolated to other contexts (most of the time different) in which a previous analysis has not been carried out.

ClickHouse is an analytical database, as such, it should be used for such purposes, where the information is stored correctly, the data volumes are really large and the queries to be performed are not the typical traditional queries on several columns with multiple aggregations. ClickHouse is not the solution for this.

On the other hand, if your case is not one of the above, it is quite possible that ClickHouse can help you. Where ClickHouse shines is when you are looking for aggregation over a particular column in large volumes of data.

Incentivized

QuestDB is well suited for any use case where you need to store large amount of data and the performance is the key factor - for both reads and writes. So use cases like market data storage in financial industry, any kind of telemetry, etc.

• Their MergeTree table engine provide impressive performance for data insert in bulk
• Not only data insert but also the way MergeTree engine uses Primary Keys to sort the data and perform data skipping based on the granules its also their secret for ridiculous fast queries
• Data compression its also great
• They provide especial table engines that allow you to read data directly from other sources like S3
• Since its written with C++ you have very granular data types and especial ones like enum, LowCardinality and etc, they save you a lot of storage since are stored as integer values
• ClickHouse functions besides the ones that respect ANSI Standards are also awesome and useful

Incentivized

• Extreme performance.
• Super easy to use.
• Compatibility with Influx line protocol.
• PostgreSQL compatibility.
• Out of order timestamps.
• Support for multiple records with same timestamp.
• Integration with Grafana.
• Team responsiveness.

• Avro data manipulation
• Kafka consistency
• DDL operations errors (by replica configuration)

Incentivized

• New project so needs a bit polishing.

ClickHouse outperforms, especially in costs, since its compression/indexing engines are so smart, and even with very low computing power, you can already perform huge analyses of the data.

Incentivized

We were looking for time series database that will be able to handle L2 market data and came across QuestDB. From the beginning we were impressed how well the QuestDB performs and that it actually significantly outperforms all other open source TSDB on market like InfluxDB, ClickHouse, Timescale, etc. Apart from the excellent performance it is also super easy to use and deploy which makes the experience of using the database very pleasant - we were able to be up and running and storing data within few hours. Topic itself is the QuestDB team that is super responsive on their slack channel and always ready to help with any query. They are constantly improving the product and if there is some missing feature that is blocking you from usage they always try the best to implement such feature asap and release a new version - one of the best support I have ever seen so far in open source community.

• Queries that used to take more than 2 minutes now take less than 1 second
• Possibility to analyze use cases in real time (before was impossible)
• The applications are more complete and the users decisions are better

Incentivized

• Reduced cost.
• Increased efficiency.
• Faster time to market.