head to head · open source
ClickHouse vs rocksdb
ClickHouse has 50,719 GitHub stars, 9,204 forks, 7,547 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rocksdb has 32,241 stars, 7,006 forks, 1,645 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ClickHouse leads on adoption by 57% (50,719 vs 32,241 stars). ClickHouse is written in C++ under Apache-2.0; rocksdb is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. ClickHouse has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, rocksdb 22%. ClickHouse was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | rocksdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 51K | ★ 32K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.2K | ⑂ 7.0K |
| 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 rocksdb if
- You want the rocksdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and rocksdb 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 rocksdb
RocksDB: A Persistent Key Value Store for Flash and RAM Storage RocksDB is developed and maintained by Facebook Database Engineering Team. It is built on earlier work on LevelDB by Sanjay Ghemawat (sanjay@google.com) and Jeff Dean (jeff@google.com) This code is a library that forms the core building block for a fast key value server, especially suited for storing data on flash drives. It has a Log Structured Merge Database (LSM) design with flexible tradeoffs between Write Amplification Factor (WAF), Read Amplification Factor (RAF) and Space Amplification Factor (SAF). It has multi threaded compactions, making…
read the full rocksdb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ClickHouse or rocksdb more popular?
ClickHouse has 50,719 GitHub stars and rocksdb has 32,241. ClickHouse has the larger community by that measure.
Are ClickHouse and rocksdb free?
Both are open source. ClickHouse is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rocksdb under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ClickHouse and rocksdb?
ClickHouse is written in C++ and rocksdb in C++. 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 rocksdb?
Choose ClickHouse if you want the larger community (50,719 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rocksdb if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.