# ClickHouse vs M3DB

**Leader by Vioscale score:** ClickHouse

| Attribute | ClickHouse | M3DB |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 63 (60% (medium)) | 36.3 (51% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | 0 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 1 | 10 |
| adoption.github_stars | 49,464 | 4,895 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | An open-source columnar database system designed to handle large-scale analytical workloads with extremely low latency. Excels at real-time analytics, observability (logs, metrics, traces), data warehousing, and AI/ML applications. | M3 is a metrics platform consisting of a distributed time-series database, query engine, and ingestion system designed to handle massive metric volumes efficiently. It provides Prometheus and Graphite compatibility while optimizing for performance and cost efficiency through purpose-built storage and querying components. |
| features.capabilities | `{"clustering":"distributed","data_model":"both","deployment":"self_hosted","compression":"columnar","ingest_model":"both","licence_class":"permissive_oss","query_language":"SQL","replication_ha":true,"high_cardinality":"strong","sql_compatibility":"full_sql"}` | `{"clustering":"distributed","data_model":"metrics","deployment":"self_hosted","compression":"columnar","downsampling":"retention_policies","ingest_model":"push","licence_class":"permissive_oss","retention_ttl":"automatic","query_language":"PromQL, Graphite","replication_ha":true,"high_cardinality":"strong","sql_compatibility":"non_sql","prometheus_remote_write":true}` |
| integrations.count | 100 | 4 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Amazon S3"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Airbyte"},{"name":"Vector"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"MySQL"}]` | `[{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Graphite"},{"name":"Kubernetes"},{"name":"Docker"}]` |
| language.primary | C++ | Go |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"cli":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Basic","summary":"$25.30/TB/mo + $0.2181/compute unit/hr","features":["Up to 1 TB storage","8-12 GiB total memory","Backups every 24h, retained for 1 day","1 availability zone","Export backups to own cloud account","Expert support with 1 business day response time","SSO (Google/Microsoft)","Social login","MFA"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TB"},"kind":"metered","amount":25.3,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"compute_unit"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.2181,"period":"hour","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Great for testing out new ideas or starter projects. Limited storage and memory.","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"memory":"8-12 GiB","storage":"1 TB","backup_retention":"1 day","availability_zones":"1"}},{"free":false,"name":"Scale","summary":"$25.30/TB/mo + $0.2985/compute unit/hr","features":["Unlimited storage","Configurable memory","Compute-compute separation","Configurable backups","2+ availability zones","Expert support with 1 hour response time, 24x7 for Severity 1 issues","S3 role-based access","Private networking","Automatic vertical scaling","Manual horizontal scaling"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TB"},"kind":"metered","amount":25.3,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"compute_unit"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.2985,"period":"hour","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For production environments, data at scale, or professional use cases.","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"memory":"Configurable","storage":"Unlimited","backup_retention":"1 day","availability_zones":"2+"}},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"$25.30/TB/mo + $0.3903/compute unit/hr","features":["Everything in Scale plan","SAML SSO","Private regions","Manual vertical scaling for custom profiles","Enterprise support with 30 min response time for Severity 1 issues","Named Lead Support Engineer","Transparent data encryption / CMEK","Scheduled upgrades","Consultative migration guides","HIPAA compliance","PCI compliance"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"TB"},"kind":"metered","amount":25.3,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"compute_unit"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.3903,"period":"hour","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For production environments, very large data at scale, or enterprise use cases.","contactSales":false}],"addOns":[{"name":"Data transfer – public internet egress","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.1152,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Data transfer – inter-region egress","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.0312,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"ClickPipes data ingestion","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.04,"period":"ingestion","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"compute_unit"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.2,"period":"hour","currency":"USD"}]}],"summary":"From $25.30/TB/mo + $0.2181/compute unit/hr. 30-day free trial.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://clickhouse.com","retrievedAt":"2026-08-01T15:34:36.304Z","freeTrialDays":30,"startingPrice":{"amount":0.2181,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://m3db.io","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T08:30:20.373Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.transparent | yes | - |
| release.cadence_days | - | 11 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.3.23.7-lts","date":"2026-08-26T13:37:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.3.23.7-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v25.8.33.6-lts","date":"2026-08-26T12:30:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v25.8.33.6-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.3.22.7-lts","date":"2026-08-25T12:26:14Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.3.22.7-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.3.21.7-lts","date":"2026-08-22T12:27:45Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.3.21.7-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.7.5.10-stable","date":"2026-08-21T13:49:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.7.5.10-stable"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v25.8.32.4-lts","date":"2026-08-21T12:22:30Z","type":"stable","version":"v25.8.32.4-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.3.20.7-lts","date":"2026-08-20T13:37:17Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.3.20.7-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v25.8.31.9-lts","date":"2026-08-20T12:28:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v25.8.31.9-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.7.4.58-stable","date":"2026-08-19T07:27:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.7.4.58-stable"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.6.3.62-stable","date":"2026-08-19T09:48:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.6.3.62-stable"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.5.7.64-stable","date":"2026-08-19T08:34:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.5.7.64-stable"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.3.19.3-lts","date":"2026-08-18T12:26:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.3.19.3-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.3.18.32-lts","date":"2026-08-17T11:58:16Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.3.18.32-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v25.8.30.16-lts","date":"2026-08-17T10:51:53Z","type":"stable","version":"v25.8.30.16-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.7.3.19-stable","date":"2026-08-06T07:18:47Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.7.3.19-stable"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.6.2.160-stable","date":"2026-08-05T10:04:32Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.6.2.160-stable"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.3.17.110-lts","date":"2026-08-05T06:37:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.3.17.110-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v25.8.29.51-lts","date":"2026-08-05T08:48:10Z","type":"stable","version":"v25.8.29.51-lts"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.6.2.158-stable","date":"2026-08-04T15:14:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.6.2.158-stable"},{"url":"https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/releases/tag/v26.5.6.113-stable","date":"2026-08-04T06:36:54Z","type":"stable","version":"v26.5.6.113-stable"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.5.0","date":"2022-04-07T21:38:08Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.4.2","date":"2022-01-19T19:13:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.4.1","date":"2021-11-20T18:35:50Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.4.0","date":"2021-11-19T23:14:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.3.0","date":"2021-10-10T12:38:36Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.3.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.2.0","date":"2021-09-18T16:49:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.2.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.1.0","date":"2021-02-03T16:58:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.1.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc.2","date":"2020-11-19T10:32:24Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.0.0-rc.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.0.0","date":"2020-11-16T16:36:58Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.0.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc.1","date":"2020-11-19T10:29:05Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.0.0-rc.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v1.0.0-rc.0","date":"2020-11-09T22:23:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.0.0-rc.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v0.15.17-hotfix.5","date":"2020-12-11T20:04:47Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.17-hotfix.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v0.15.17-hotfix.4","date":"2020-12-07T08:08:20Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.17-hotfix.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v0.15.17-hotfix.2","date":"2020-10-28T19:59:03Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.17-hotfix.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v0.15.17-hotfix.1","date":"2020-10-28T19:40:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.17-hotfix.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v0.15.17-hotfix.3","date":"2020-11-17T23:03:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.17-hotfix.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v0.15.17-hotfix.0","date":"2020-10-23T19:02:15Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.17-hotfix.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v0.15.17","date":"2020-10-08T14:27:35Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.17"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v0.15.16","date":"2020-10-02T06:41:52Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.16"},{"url":"https://github.com/m3db/m3/releases/tag/v0.15.15","date":"2020-09-21T02:01:35Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.15.15"}]` |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | 4.9 | 3.3 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2FClickHouse%2FClickHouse&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fm3db%2Fm3&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (Time-Series Databases)

| Capability | ClickHouse | M3DB |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Query** |  |  |
| Query language (SQL / PromQL / InfluxQL-Flux / Graphite) | SQL | PromQL, Graphite |
| SQL compatibility | Full SQL | Non-SQL |
| **Ingest** |  |  |
| Ingest model | Both | Push |
| **Model** |  |  |
| Data model | Both | Metrics (labels/tags) |
| **Lifecycle** |  |  |
| Downsampling / rollups | - | Retention policies |
| Retention / TTL | - | Automatic |
| **Storage** |  |  |
| Compression (columnar / delta / Gorilla) | columnar | columnar |
| **Performance** |  |  |
| High-cardinality handling | Strong | Strong |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Clustering / horizontal scale | Distributed / sharded | Distributed / sharded |
| Replication / HA | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Deployment | Self-hosted | Self-hosted |
| **Interop** |  |  |
| Prometheus remote-write compatible | - | ✓ |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Licence class | Permissive OSS | Permissive OSS |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T16:45:50.418Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*