ClickHouse
UpdatedClickHouse is a column-oriented OLAP database built for real-time analytics at scale.
Profile
A column-oriented database for real-time analytics on large datasets, available as open-source software and a managed cloud service.
ClickHouse is a column-oriented OLAP database built for real-time analytics at scale. The company—founded in 2009 as an experimental project at Yandex and later incorporated independently in 2021—has grown from a niche database into critical infrastructure for teams running high-velocity analytics workloads. The core team includes CEO Aaron Katz, CTO Alexey Milovidov, and President Yury Izrailevsky.
ClickHouse released under Apache 2.0 in 2016 and gained adoption as companies discovered the performance gap between traditional row-oriented databases and the sub-second query speeds needed for analytics dashboards and observability pipelines. The company now serves over 3,000 customers, generating $160 million in annualized revenue in 2025—a 256% increase from $45 million in 2024. Named customers include Tesla (which ingested over one quadrillion rows), GitLab, Meta, Spotify, and Lyft. ClickHouse Cloud, the managed offering, achieved 250% year-over-year ARR growth in 2024–2025, with >90% of revenue from cloud operations and net revenue retention above 200%.
The company raised $350 million in Series C in May 2025 at $6.35 billion valuation (led by Khosla Ventures), followed by a Series C extension in October 2025 with investors including Citi Ventures and Insight Partners, plus minority stakes from 49ers players Brock Purdy and Christian McCaffrey. In January 2026, ClickHouse closed a $400 million Series D at $15 billion valuation, led by Dragoneer Investment Group. Total funding exceeds $1 billion.
The company is consolidating the AI analytics stack through acquisitions. In November 2025, it acquired LibreChat, an open-source AI chat platform, to build the "Agentic Data Stack." In January 2026, it acquired Langfuse, an LLM observability platform with 20,000+ GitHub stars and 26 million monthly SDK installs. The company also launched native Postgres integration in January 2026, aiming to unify transactional and analytical workloads.
Products by ClickHouse
Who buys this
- Data teams running real-time analytics dashboards and business intelligence
- Platform and observability teams managing logs, metrics, and traces at scale
- AI teams building production applications requiring fast data access for LLM agents
- Enterprise data warehouses evaluating alternatives to Snowflake and BigQuery
- Startups and mid-market firms requiring sub-second query performance on large datasets
Publicly disclosed clients
- Tesla
- GitLab
- Meta
- Spotify
- Lyft
- Anthropic
- Mercado Libre
- Canva
- LangChain
Strengths and what to watch
Strengths
- Exceptional real-time query performance for OLAP workloads; companies report sub-second responses on trillion-row datasets without expensive aggregation.
- Dual revenue model proven at scale: open-source adoption (Apache 2.0 license) plus managed cloud tier with 250%+ YoY ARR growth and >200% NRR.
- Strategic consolidation of AI infrastructure through Langfuse and LibreChat acquisitions, positioning ClickHouse as the data backbone for agentic workflows.
Watch for
- Pricing tension: ClickHouse Cloud raised prices ~30% in January 2025; monitor 2026 ARR retention and churn elasticity as customers evaluate alternatives.
- Cloud-provider threat: AWS Redshift, BigQuery, and Snowflake adding real-time OLAP capabilities; ClickHouse's performance and open-source moat may compress.
- Organizational stability: Glassdoor rating of 3.1/5 and documented culture concerns despite aggressive hiring; track exec turnover and retention as the company scales post-Series D.
Recent moves
- 5mo ago ClickHouse closes $400M Series D at $15B valuation, led by Dragoneer; acquires Langfuse and launches Postgres service
- 7mo ago ClickHouse acquires LibreChat, an open-source AI chat platform, to build the Agentic Data Stack
- 8mo ago ClickHouse extends Series C with new investors including Citi Ventures and Insight Partners
- 1y ago ClickHouse raises $350M Series C led by Khosla Ventures at $6.35B valuation
Key Information
- Industry
- Database
- Founded
- 2021
- Employees
- 201-500
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, CA / Amsterdam
Frequently Asked Questions
What is ClickHouse?
ClickHouse is a column-oriented OLAP database designed for real-time analytics on massive datasets. Founded in 2009 at Yandex and released open-source in 2016, it delivers sub-second query speeds on trillion-row datasets. The company now serves over 3,000 customers including Tesla, Meta, and Spotify.
How fast are ClickHouse queries?
ClickHouse delivers sub-second query responses on trillion-row datasets without expensive aggregation, setting it apart from traditional row-oriented databases. Tesla ingested over one quadrillion rows using ClickHouse. The platform's column-oriented architecture enables exceptional real-time query performance for OLAP workloads at enterprise scale.
What does ClickHouse cost?
ClickHouse offers a dual model: free open-source (Apache 2.0) or managed cloud with pay-as-you-go pricing. Cloud revenue grew 250% year-over-year in 2024–2025, with over 90% of total revenue from cloud operations. The company raised prices ~30% in January 2025, reflecting premium positioning.
How does ClickHouse compare to Snowflake?
ClickHouse pioneered column-oriented real-time OLAP with sub-second queries on trillion-row datasets. While Snowflake, BigQuery, and AWS Redshift are adding real-time capabilities, ClickHouse's open-source foundation and managed cloud model offer distinct cost and performance advantages for teams running analytics-heavy workloads and observability platforms at enterprise scale.
What is ClickHouse doing with AI?
ClickHouse is building an AI analytics stack through acquisitions. It acquired LibreChat in November 2025 and Langfuse in January 2026 to strengthen observability and agentic workflow support. Langfuse had 26 million monthly SDK installs. The strategy positions ClickHouse as the data backbone for production AI applications.
Is ClickHouse suitable for my company?
ClickHouse fits data teams needing sub-second analytics dashboards, observability platforms managing logs and metrics at scale, and AI teams building agent applications. Enterprise data warehouses evaluating Snowflake alternatives benefit from its performance and cost model. Startups and mid-market firms requiring high-velocity analytics also find strong value.
How ClickHouse compares
Direct head-to-head against 3 competitors. Picked by 7wData.
ClickHouse
- Positioning
- A column-oriented database for real-time analytics on large datasets, available as open-source software and a managed cloud service.
- Customer segments
- Data teams running real-time analytics dashboards and business intelligence
- Strengths
- Exceptional real-time query performance for OLAP workloads; companies report sub-second responses on trillion-row datasets without expensive aggregation.
- Watch for
- Pricing tension: ClickHouse Cloud raised prices ~30% in January 2025; monitor 2026 ARR retention and churn elasticity as customers evaluate alternatives.
- Recent moves
- ClickHouse raises $350M Series C led by Khosla Ventures at $6.35B valuation
Snowflake
- Positioning
- Cloud data warehouse positioned as unified OLAP, OLTP, and AI infrastructure for enterprise data teams.
- Customer segments
- Fortune 500 and Global 2000 enterprises. Buyer is VP of Data or Chief Data Officer managing multi-team pipelines.
- Strengths
- Separation of compute and storage allows independent scaling, letting teams run concurrent workloads without resource contention.
- Watch for
- Pricing is unpredictable: mid-sized organizations report $30,000 per month bills, with data loading alone consuming 55% of credits before optimization.
- Recent moves
- Acquired Observe for $1 billion (January 2026) to add AI-powered observability to its data cloud platform.
SingleStore
- Positioning
- Distributed SQL database with dual row/column store targeting real-time transactions and analytics in a single platform.
- Customer segments
- Large enterprises (10,000+ employees) in analytics, wealth management, and software. Buyers include data engineering and platform teams.
- Strengths
- Unified transactional and analytical workloads in one engine, removing the need for separate OLTP and OLAP systems.
- Watch for
- 26+ documented outages in the past year raise reliability concerns for production workloads dependent on continuous availability.
- Recent moves
- Vector Capital completed a growth buyout (September 2025, approx. $500M), with CEO Raj Verma retained and acquisition expansion planned.
StarRocks
- Positioning
- Open-source OLAP database positioned for high-concurrency, multi-table join workloads where ClickHouse degrades at scale.
- Customer segments
- Data engineering teams at mid-to-large tech companies running real-time analytics on semi-structured or multi-dimensional datasets.
- Strengths
- Handles 100x more concurrent queries than ClickHouse before latency degradation, verified in head-to-head performance comparisons.
- Watch for
- Operational instability: documented customer reports of query timeouts, node overloads, and static partitioning constraints requiring reactive incident management.
- Recent moves
- StarRocks 4.1 released April 2026, introducing automatic tablet splitting for multi-tenant workloads and large-capacity tablet support.
Sources
- clickhouse.com — Founding history, founders (Aaron Katz, Alexey Milovidov, Yury Izrailevsky), 2009 origin, 2016 open-source release, 2021 incorporation
- clickhouse.com — Series C $350M funding May 2025, Khosla Ventures lead, $6.35B valuation, strategic direction toward AI-native analytics
- sacra.com — $160M ARR in 2025 (256% growth from $45M in 2024), 3,000+ customers, 250%+ YoY Cloud ARR growth, >200% NRR, notable customers including Anthropic and Mercado Libre
- clickhouse.com — Series D $400M January 2026, $15B valuation, Dragoneer Investment Group leadership, Langfuse acquisition, native Postgres service launch
- www.businesswire.com — LibreChat acquisition November 2025, Agentic Data Stack positioning, open-source commitments
- clickhouse.com — 2025 product innovations including SharedCatalog, Warehouses, regional expansion, HIPAA/PCI compliance, AI features (SQL autocomplete, Ask AI, MCP Server)