Pick ClickHouse if
analytics teams who will burn the $300 / 30-day credits on a first SQL Console, then stay on Basic at $0.2181 / compute-unit / hour + $25.30 / TB / month when the warehouse must stay up.
Read the ClickHouse pageClickHouse vs MotherDuck
Our take
Pick ClickHouse if analytics teams who will burn the $300 / 30-day credits on a first SQL Console, then stay on Basic at $0.2181 / compute-unit / hour + $25.30 / TB / month when the warehouse must stay up. Pick MotherDuck if solo analysts who will stay on Lite $0 (10 GB + 10 Pulse hours), then buy Business at $250/org/month plus usage when they need Standard+ instances, Flights at scale, and a 99.9% SLA.
ClickHouse
OLAP SQL Cloud. Trial
Best for
ClickHouse Warehouse queries you start with $300 trial credits
MotherDuck Cloud DuckDB metered in CU-hours and GB
Free plan
ClickHouse $0 · apache-2.0. Confirmed by the public repo license
MotherDuck $0 · no card. Up to 3 internal users and 2 service accounts. 10 GB storage and 10 Pulse hours / month included. Pulse instances only. Preset RBAC. Community support. 1-day snapshots. Lite without a card includes 30 minutes/day of F4 Flights
Lowest paid
ClickHouse Data transfer $0.1152
MotherDuck Storage $0.04/mo
Next step up
ClickHouse Managed Postgres from $0.125/hour
MotherDuck Flights $0.15/hour
Coding agent
ClickHouse
MotherDuck Flights
Runs where
ClickHouse Local or hosted
MotherDuck
Watch out
ClickHouse $300 is trial credits, not a forever Free plan
MotherDuck Lite is Pulse-only
Last checked
ClickHouse 2026-10-23 · clickhouse.com/pricing
MotherDuck 2026-10-22 · motherduck.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick MotherDuck if
solo analysts who will stay on Lite $0 (10 GB + 10 Pulse hours), then buy Business at $250/org/month plus usage when they need Standard+ instances, Flights at scale, and a 99.9% SLA.
Read the MotherDuck page