ClickHouse celebrates ten years as open-source OLAP database
Original: Ten years of ClickHouse in open source
Why This Matters
Demonstrates sustainable open-source governance model; establishes benchmark for database development practices and community contribution standards.
ClickHouse, an open-source analytical database, marks its tenth anniversary of public release on June 15, 2026. The project has grown to over 2,000 contributors and is recognized as the most popular open-source OLAP database for real-time analytics.
ClickHouse was released in open source on June 15, 2016, and has evolved into a leading analytical database with more than 2,000 contributors. The project founder Alexey Milovidov outlined different levels of open-source engagement, from simply making code publicly readable (Level 0) to full transparency with open contribution guidelines, task tracking, code review systems, development roadmaps, testing infrastructure, CI systems, release cycles, user support, and documentation (Level 3). ClickHouse operates at Level 3, aiming to be exemplary in database development practices. The database is recognized as a resource for learning C++ development, representing frontier software engineering practices. It serves as a repository for experiments with data structures and performance optimization, where pull requests can be submitted as experiments without requiring immediate merge approval. The project maintains the same level of scrutiny for experimental contributions as for production releases.