head to head · open source
ClickHouse vs rustfs
ClickHouse has 49,959 GitHub stars, 8,971 forks, 7,547 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rustfs has 33,108 stars, 1,482 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ClickHouse leads on adoption by 51% (49,959 vs 33,108 stars). ClickHouse is written in C++ under Apache-2.0; rustfs is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. ClickHouse has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, rustfs 4%. ClickHouse was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cloud-native), 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 | rustfs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 50K | ★ 33K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ClickHouse if
- You weight community size — 50K 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 rustfs if
- You want the rustfs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and rustfs fits your workflow better
About ClickHouse
ClickHouse is an open source, column oriented database management system written in C++ that delivers real time analytical query performance on massive datasets. It operates within the broader data infrastructure ecosystem, serving as a high performance alternative to traditional row oriented databases for OLAP workloads.
read the full ClickHouse overview →
About rustfs
RustFS is an open source, S3 compatible, high performance distributed object storage system written in Rust, aimed at teams running data lakes, AI, and big data workloads who want MinIO style operational simplicity without the restrictions of an AGPL licence.
read the full rustfs overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ClickHouse or rustfs more popular?
ClickHouse has 49,959 GitHub stars and rustfs has 33,108. ClickHouse has the larger community by that measure.
Are ClickHouse and rustfs free?
Both are open source. ClickHouse is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rustfs under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ClickHouse and rustfs?
ClickHouse is written in C++ and rustfs in Rust. 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 rustfs?
Choose ClickHouse if you want the larger community (49,959 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rustfs if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.