Compare software

DuckDB vs ClickHouse: catalog facts
DuckDB	ClickHouse
Free Free and open source under the MIT licence.	Freemium Free and open source to self-host, with a paid managed cloud service also available.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Self-hosted
Queries CSV and Parquet files directly with no loading step Embeds into Python, R and the shell with a single dependency	Columnar storage gives fast query performance over very large datasets Widely adopted as the backend for other open source observability tools
Single-process by design; it is not a shared multi-user database Concurrent writers are not supported	Using it well for observability requires additional tooling or schema design on top Operating a ClickHouse cluster at scale takes real database administration expertise
Downloadable app	Self-hosted, Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: MIT	License not stated
Not stated if an account is needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 22, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.