ClickHouse vs. Microsoft SQL Server

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ClickHouse
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
ClickHouse is an open-source, column-oriented OLAP database system enabling real-time analytical reports using SQL queries. With linear scalability, it handles trillions of rows and petabytes of data. ClickHouse Cloud offers a scalable serverless solution for real-time analytics.N/A
Microsoft SQL Server
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database.
$1,418
Per License
Pricing
ClickHouseMicrosoft SQL Server
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Subscription
$1,418.00
Per License
Enterprise
$13,748.00
Per License
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ClickHouseMicrosoft SQL Server
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPay for what is used: It automatically scales up and down compute resources based on the user's workload It scales storage and compute separately It automatically scales unused resources down to zero so that users don’t pay for idle services
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ClickHouseMicrosoft SQL Server
Best Alternatives
ClickHouseMicrosoft SQL Server
Small Businesses
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 7.9 out of 10
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 7.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 7.9 out of 10
InterSystems IRIS
InterSystems IRIS
Score 7.9 out of 10
Enterprises
SAP IQ
SAP IQ
Score 10.0 out of 10
SAP IQ
SAP IQ
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ClickHouseMicrosoft SQL Server
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(107 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(8 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
7.6
(17 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(26 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ClickHouseMicrosoft SQL Server
Likelihood to Recommend
ClickHouse, Inc.
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.
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Microsoft
Microsoft SQL is ubiquitous, while MySQL runs under the hood all over the place. Microsoft SQL is the platform taught in colleges and certification courses and is the one most likely to be used by businesses because it is backed by Microsoft. Its interface is friendly (well, as pleasant as SQL can be) and has been used by so many for so long that resources are freely available if you encounter any issues.
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Pros
ClickHouse, Inc.
  • 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
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Microsoft
  • Easy to configure and use with Visual Studio and Dot Net
  • Easy integration with MSBI to perform data analysis
  • Data Security
  • Easy to understand and use
  • Very easy to export database and tables in the form of SQL query or a script
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Cons
ClickHouse, Inc.
  • Avro data manipulation
  • Kafka consistency
  • DDL operations errors (by replica configuration)
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Microsoft
  • Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise edition has a high cost but is the only edition which supports SQL Always On Availability Groups. It would be nice to include this feature in the Standard version.
  • Licensing of Microsoft SQL Server is a quite complex matter, it would be good to simplify licensing in the future. For example, per core vs per user CAL licensing, as well as complex licensing scenarios in the Cloud and on Edge locations.
  • It would be good to include native tools for converting Oracle, DB2, Postgresql and MySQL/MariaDB databases (schema and data) for import into Microsoft SQL Server.
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Likelihood to Renew
ClickHouse, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
We understand that the Microsoft SQL Server will continue to advance, offering the same robust and reliable platform while adding new features that enable us, as a software center, to create a superior product. That provides excellent performance while reducing the hardware requirements and the total cost of ownership of our solution.
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Usability
ClickHouse, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
SQL Server mostly 'just works' or generates error messages to help you sort out the trouble. You can usually count on the product to get the job done and keep an eye on your potential mistakes. Interaction with other Microsoft products makes operating as a Windows user pretty straight forward. Digging through the multitude of dialogs and wizards can be a pain, but the answer is usually there somewhere.
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Reliability and Availability
ClickHouse, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Its does not have outages.
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Performance
ClickHouse, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
SSAS data cubes may some time slow down your Excel reports.
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Support Rating
ClickHouse, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
We managed to handle most of our problems by looking into Microsoft's official documentation that has everything explained and almost every function has an example that illustrates in detail how a particular functionality works. Just like PowerShell has the ability to show you an example of how some cmdlet works, that is the case also here, and in my opinion, it is a very good practice and I like it.
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In-Person Training
ClickHouse, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
It was good
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Online Training
ClickHouse, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
very hands on and detailed training
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Implementation Rating
ClickHouse, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Other than SQL taking quite a bit of time to actually install there are no problems with installation. Even on hardware that has good performance SQL can still take close to an hour to install a typical server with management and reporting services.
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Alternatives Considered
ClickHouse, Inc.
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.
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Microsoft
[Microsoft] SQL Server has a much better community and professional support and is overall just a more reliable system with Microsoft behind it. I've used MySQL in the past and SQL Server has just become more comfortable for me and is my go to RDBMS.
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Scalability
ClickHouse, Inc.
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
SQL server does handle growing demands of a mid sized company.
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Return on Investment
ClickHouse, Inc.
  • 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
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Microsoft
  • Increased accuracy - We went from multiple users having different versions of an Excel spreadsheet to a single source of truth for our reporting.
  • Increased Efficiency - We can now generate reports at any time from a single source rather than multiple users spending their time collating data and generating reports.
  • Improved Security - Enterprise level security on a dedicated server rather than financial files on multiple laptop hard drives.
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