Profiles / StarRocks
StarRocks
An MPP database with a MySQL-compatible protocol, a strong join engine and real-time ingestion from Kafka. It is the closest open-source alternative in spirit, but on identical hardware it scores 2.9 on hot runs, needs nearly twice ClickHouse's disk and handles roughly a third to two-fifths of its concurrent load.
Capable open-source alternative, behind on speed and storageApache 2.0
Strengths
- +Open source under Apache 2.0.
- +Cost-based optimizer that handles complex joins well.
- +Stream Load and Routine Load for real-time ingestion from Kafka.
- +MySQL-compatible protocol works with existing tools.
Weaknesses
- −Hot-run score of 2.9 on c6a.4xlarge, almost 3× ClickHouse.
- −Slowest bulk load of the self-hosted group (489 s).
- −A third to two-fifths of ClickHouse’s concurrent queries per second on the same bare-metal hosts.
- −More components to operate (frontend and backend nodes).
Capabilities
| Real-time ingestion | Stream Load, Routine Load from Kafka |
|---|---|
| Columnar storage | Columnar segments |
| Open source | Apache 2.0 |
| Managed cloud | Third-party (CelerData) |
| Query speed at scale | 2.90 self-hosted |
| High concurrency | 7–14 QPS on the same hosts |
| Cost model | Free to self-host; vendor cloud available |
StarRocks vs ClickHouse
On the same c6a.4xlarge, StarRocks scores 2.90 on hot runs to ClickHouse’s 1.03, and stores the data in 17.9 GB to ClickHouse’s 9.4 GB. For teams that need heavy multi-table joins and MySQL wire compatibility, StarRocks is a reasonable choice; for real-time analytics, we recommend ClickHouse.