Can ClickHouse Replace Vector Databases? HNSW, Benchmarks & SQL Setup

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:00:00 +0530

Everyone’s building AI apps now. And every AI app needs a place to stash embeddings. The instant your data grows beyond “fits in memory”, you need a vector database. Or do you?

If you’re already running ClickHouse for analytics, here’s some good news: you might not need another database. ClickHouse can hold its own as a vector store. Not because it was built for it, but because it’s built to be fast at everything.

Vector-Database on Lorbic

Can ClickHouse Replace Vector Databases? HNSW, Benchmarks & SQL Setup