Snowflake vs ClickHouse

by Gralio Mar 12, 2025

Snowflake and ClickHouse offer distinct approaches to data management and analytics. Snowflake provides a fully managed, scalable platform with broad integration capabilities, while ClickHouse excels in high-performance analytical queries for large datasets. The best choice depends on your specific business needs and priorities, including budget, performance requirements, and in-house expertise.

At Gralio.ai we help to simplify your decision-making process by offering detailed, side-by-side software comparisons like this one, to help you confidently choose the tool that aligns with your business goals.

This comparison was created by analysing 635 reviews and 60 websites, saving 4 hours, 1 minute of reading.

Snowflake

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ClickHouse

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About

Snowflake is a cloud-based data platform designed for businesses to store, manage, and analyze large amounts of data. It works like a giant, virtual warehouse for all your data, accessible from anywhere. Snowflake adapts to your needs, scaling its power and cost up or down on demand. This makes it suitable for tasks like analyzing customer trends, building data-driven applications, or sharing data securely with partners. Its strength lies in handling massive datasets with high speed and efficiency.

ClickHouse is a database management system specifically designed for analyzing very large amounts of data quickly. It achieves its speed by storing data in columns rather than rows. This makes it especially good for generating reports from data like business transactions, website activity, or application performance logs. ClickHouse is open-source and can be used for free, or as a paid cloud service with additional features.

Summary

Main difference

Snowflake is a fully managed cloud data platform offering a wide range of data warehousing capabilities, ideal for businesses seeking a comprehensive and scalable solution. ClickHouse, on the other hand, is an open-source, column-oriented database management system specializing in high-performance analytics for large datasets, best suited for companies prioritizing speed and cost-effectiveness.

Relative strengths of Snowflake (compared to ClickHouse)

Superior data integration capabilities: Snowflake seamlessly integrates with various data sources, including relational databases, cloud platforms, and NoSQL databases.
Greater scalability and flexibility: Snowflake automatically scales resources based on demand, accommodating fluctuating workloads and data volumes.
Stronger enterprise-grade features: Snowflake offers robust security, governance, and data sharing capabilities, catering to enterprise-level requirements.

Relative weaknesses of Snowflake (compared to ClickHouse)

Higher cost: Snowflake's managed services and advanced features come at a premium price point compared to ClickHouse's open-source option.
Less specialized for analytical queries: While Snowflake supports SQL, ClickHouse's columnar storage and focus on analytical queries can provide faster performance for specific use cases.
Steeper learning curve: Snowflake's comprehensive platform may require more time and resources to fully utilize compared to ClickHouse's more focused approach.

Who should use Snowflake VS. ClickHouse

Snowflake is a robust, scalable, and cloud-based data platform ideal for data-driven businesses of all sizes. Users praise Snowflake's scalability and easy-to-use interface, enabling efficient data storage, management, and analysis. However, some users mention limitations in machine learning features and unstructured data support. It's a valuable tool for companies looking to leverage data for better decision-making and innovation.

ClickHouse is an open-source, column-oriented database management system (DBMS) designed for high-performance analytics on large datasets. Its speed makes it ideal for real-time data warehousing and generating reports from diverse sources like website activity or application logs. ClickHouse is available as a free, open-source platform and as a paid cloud service with enhanced features.

Ideal for small businesses, medium businesses, and large enterprises.
Suitable for various data-driven industries, including finance, technology, retail, healthcare, and media.

Best for medium to large enterprises (100+ employees).
Suitable for data-intensive industries needing real-time analytics.

Snowflake and ClickHouse features

Supported

Partially supported

Not supported

Type in the name of the feature or in your own words tell us what you need

Open Source

Not supported

Snowflake itself is not open-source, but it offers open-source tools like Polaris Catalog and Arctic.

Supported

ClickHouse is open-source, available under the Apache 2 license.
Real-time Data Warehouse

Supported

Snowflake supports real-time data warehousing with features like Snowpipe and fast analytical queries.

Supported

ClickHouse is designed for real-time data warehousing, ingestion, and fast analytical queries.
Column-oriented DBMS

Supported

Snowflake is a column-oriented database management system (DBMS), enabling efficient querying and analysis of large datasets.

Supported

ClickHouse is a column-oriented database management system, optimized for analytical queries.
Data Warehouse Integration

Supported

Snowflake excels in data warehouse integration, seamlessly connecting with diverse data sources like relational databases, cloud platforms, NoSQL databases, and streaming services. Its compatibility with third-party tools, data sharing capabilities, flexible architecture, support for semi-structured data, and query optimization prowess make it highly capable of integrating with other warehouse databases.

Supported

ClickHouse integrates with other data warehouses through tools like Airbyte.
Columnar storage

Supported

Snowflake stores data in a columnar format, meaning data for each column is stored together, separate from other columns. This is beneficial for data analytics and business intelligence applications where calculations are often performed over a single data column.

Supported

ClickHouse is a columnar database management system, optimized for analytical queries.
SQL data transformation

Supported

Snowflake supports data transformation using SQL queries, including filtering, aggregating, joining, and manipulating data. It also supports views, stored procedures, and UDFs for this purpose.

Supported

ClickHouse supports data transformations using SQL queries.

Qualities

Value and Pricing Transparency

-0.13

Neutral sentiment

No data
Customer Service

+0.33

Rather positive sentiment

No data
Ease of Use

+0.64

Rather positive sentiment

No data
Reliability and Performance

+0.73

Strongly positive sentiment

No data
Ease of Implementation

+0.47

Rather positive sentiment

No data
Scalability

+1

Strongly positive sentiment

No data

Snowflake and ClickHouse Pricing

No data

User sentiment

Neutral

-0.13

See full Pricing page

ClickHouse offers a tiered subscription pricing model based on storage and compute usage. They offer a 30-day free trial for all plans. The pricing includes costs for storage, compute, data transfer, and ClickPipes. They also offer a 'Bring Your Own Cloud' option for specific data residency and compliance requirements.

Plans

See full Pricing page

Snowflake and ClickHouse review insights

635 reviews analysed from and

Users love

The ability to easily scale warehouses based on requirements
Query profile is a very useful feature
The user interface is easy to implement and navigate
Seamless integration with various data tools

No data

Users dislike

Limited machine learning features
Data migration efforts are large to transfer everything from on premises to cloud
The new UI is too confusing
Unstructured data support is lacking

No data

Snowflake and ClickHouse Ratings

Glassdoor

4.0/5

(749)

Glassdoor

5.0/5

(2)

Company health

Employee growth

16% increase in the last year

46% increase in the last year

Web traffic

24% decrease in the last quarter

14% decrease in the last quarter

Financing

December 2021 - $2B

August 2022 - $300M

How do Snowflake's data sharing capabilities compare to ClickHouse's?

Snowflake's data sharing capabilities are a core feature allowing secure and governed data sharing with other Snowflake accounts or external consumers, even without requiring them to be Snowflake customers. ClickHouse, while not having built-in data sharing features as robust as Snowflake's, can achieve data sharing through various methods such as using external tables or utilizing integrations with other tools. This makes Snowflake's native data sharing functionality significantly more streamlined and user-friendly compared to ClickHouse's approach which often requires more custom configuration.

Which product better supports real-time data ingestion and analysis?

ClickHouse is better suited for real-time data ingestion and analysis. While Snowflake is a powerful data platform, ClickHouse is specifically designed for high-speed analytics on very large datasets, using a columnar storage format optimized for real-time query processing. Its features explicitly mention real-time data warehousing and ingestion.

What are the advantages of Snowflake?

Snowflake offers a fully managed, cloud-based solution with automatic scaling, simplifying infrastructure management and adapting to fluctuating data needs. It boasts broad SQL support and excellent data warehousing integration capabilities, enabling seamless connections with diverse data sources. Users praise Snowflake's easy-to-use interface and scalable warehouses. It caters to a wide range of industries and company sizes, making it a versatile data platform.

What are the disadvantages of Snowflake?

Snowflake's disadvantages include limited machine learning capabilities compared to some competitors, potentially complex data migration processes for on-premise data, a user interface that some users find confusing, and a lack of robust support for unstructured data. Additionally, cost can be a concern as usage-based pricing can be unpredictable and potentially expensive for resource-intensive workloads.

Alternatives to Snowflake and ClickHouse

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server is a database management system for businesses of all sizes. It helps you analyze various types of data and can be used in multiple environments, including on your servers and in the cloud. SQL Server offers high performance and strong security features. It allows developers to build applications using different programming languages and provides mobile business intelligence tools.

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is a reliable, open-source database system businesses use to store and manage their data. Known for its reliability and performance, it's suitable for a wide range of needs, from single computers to large-scale data storage for multiple users. PostgreSQL is free to use and is backed by a large community of developers.

Google Cloud BigQuery

Google BigQuery is a fully managed data warehouse service that helps businesses analyze massive datasets to gain insights. It's serverless, so you don't need to manage any infrastructure, and it can handle data from various sources. BigQuery is designed for fast query processing, allowing you to quickly explore and analyze your data. It's a powerful tool for data-driven decision-making in any industry, regardless of company size.

Databricks Data Intelligence Platform

Databricks Data Intelligence Platform is a cloud-based platform designed to help mid-size to large businesses manage and analyze data. It offers a range of tools for data warehousing, data engineering, data science, and machine learning, all in one place. Databricks aims to simplify data processes, reduce costs, and enable companies to build and deploy AI solutions. They are well-known for their work with open-source technologies, making them a popular choice for businesses invested in those ecosystems.

Quobyte

Quobyte is a software-based storage platform designed for businesses dealing with large amounts of data. It allows you to store data across your own equipment, the cloud, or a combination of both. Quobyte is designed to be easy to use and can be scaled to meet your needs. It boasts high performance, making it suitable for demanding applications like artificial intelligence and data analysis. It's used by companies like Siemens and Yahoo! Japan for its scalability and performance.

Amazon Redshift

Amazon Redshift is a cloud-based data warehouse service designed to help businesses analyze large volumes of data. It offers a cost-effective solution for storing and querying data, with the ability to handle petabytes of information. Redshift integrates with existing business intelligence tools, allowing for seamless data analysis. Its speed and scalability make it suitable for companies of all sizes looking to gain insights from their data.

Page co-authored by

Michal Kaczor

CEO at Gralio

Michal has worked at startups for many years and writes about topics relating to software selection and IT management. As a former consultant for Bain, a business advisory company, he also knows how to understand needs of any business and find solutions to its problems.

Tymon Terlikiewicz

CTO at Gralio

Tymon is a seasoned CTO who loves finding the perfect tools for any task. He recently headed up the tech department at Batmaid, a well-known Swiss company, where he managed about 60 software purchases, including CX, HR, Payroll, Marketing automation and various developer tools.

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