head to head · open source
ClickHouse vs ZeroFS
ClickHouse has 50,719 GitHub stars, 9,204 forks, 7,547 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ZeroFS has 3,164 stars, 128 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. ClickHouse leads on adoption by 1,503% (50,719 vs 3,164 stars). ClickHouse is written in C++ under Apache-2.0; ZeroFS is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. ClickHouse has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, ZeroFS 4%. 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 | ZeroFS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 51K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.2K | ⑂ 128 |
| 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 ZeroFS if
- You want the ZeroFS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and ZeroFS 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 ZeroFS
Documentation Quickstart ZeroFS is a log structured filesystem for S3 ZeroFS serves S3 compatible buckets as POSIX filesystems over NFS and 9P, and as raw block devices over NBD. All three servers run in a single userspace process. Data is compressed and encrypted before upload. ZeroFS differentiates itself from other "filesystem on S3" projects by: Being POSIX conformant Reaching near raw S3 throughput on large files, and scaling to workloads of hundreds of millions of small files Handling tens of thousands of requests per second Requiring no external database service (everything is stored on S3) Being well…
read the full ZeroFS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ClickHouse or ZeroFS more popular?
ClickHouse has 50,719 GitHub stars and ZeroFS has 3,164. ClickHouse has the larger community by that measure.
Are ClickHouse and ZeroFS free?
Both are open source. ClickHouse is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ZeroFS under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ClickHouse and ZeroFS?
ClickHouse is written in C++ and ZeroFS 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 ZeroFS?
Choose ClickHouse if you want the larger community (50,719 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ZeroFS if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.