head to head · open source
ClickHouse vs Apache Pinot
ClickHouse has 50,719 GitHub stars, 9,204 forks, 7,547 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Apache Pinot has 6,171 stars, 1,529 forks, 1,403 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ClickHouse leads on adoption by 722% (50,719 vs 6,171 stars). ClickHouse is written in C++ under Apache-2.0; Apache Pinot is written in Java under Apache-2.0. ClickHouse has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, Apache Pinot 25%. ClickHouse was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| ClickHouse | Apache Pinot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 51K | ★ 6.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.2K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ClickHouse if
- You weight community size — 51K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Apache Pinot if
- You want the Apache Pinot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and Apache Pinot fits your workflow better
About ClickHouse
ClickHouse® is an open source column oriented database management system that allows generating analytical data reports in real time. How To Install (Linux, macOS, FreeBSD) Useful Links Official website has a quick high level overview of ClickHouse on the main page. ClickHouse Cloud ClickHouse as a service, built by the creators and maintainers. Tutorial shows how to set up and query a small ClickHouse cluster. Documentation provides more in depth information. YouTube channel has a lot of content about ClickHouse in video format. ClickHouse Theater contains presentations and videos about ClickHouse. Slack and…
read the full ClickHouse overview →
About Apache Pinot
What is Apache Pinot? Features When should I use Pinot? Contributing to Pinot Apache Pinot YouTube Channel Building Pinot Deploying Pinot to Kubernetes Join the Community Documentation License What is Apache Pinot? Apache Pinot is a real time distributed OLAP datastore, built to deliver scalable real time analytics with low latency. It can ingest from batch data sources (such as Hadoop HDFS, Amazon S3, Azure ADLS, Google Cloud Storage) as well as stream data sources (such as Apache Kafka). Pinot was built by engineers at LinkedIn and Uber and is designed to scale up and out with no upper bound. Performance…
read the full Apache Pinot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ClickHouse or Apache Pinot more popular?
ClickHouse has 50,719 GitHub stars and Apache Pinot has 6,171. ClickHouse has the larger community by that measure.
Are ClickHouse and Apache Pinot free?
Both are open source. ClickHouse is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Apache Pinot under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ClickHouse and Apache Pinot?
ClickHouse is written in C++ and Apache Pinot in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ClickHouse or Apache Pinot?
Choose ClickHouse if you want the larger community (50,719 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Apache Pinot if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.