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How ClickHouse’s scores are calculated

The full audit trail, recomputed from the verdict data at build time through the same code that produced the leaderboard: verdict × quality × story weight per cell, cells sum to dimension scores, dimensions blend into the PA Score. Every number on the product page is reproducible from this page alone; for why the formula looks like this, see the methodology.

verdict factors: full ×1.0 · partial ×0.6 · disputed ×0.3 · none ×0.0 · n/a excluded from both sides · cell points = weight × quality × factor · cell max = weight × 10

PA Score41/100

Agent-ready 53.3 × 0.30 = 15.99

API quality 30.9 × 0.20 = 6.18

Openness 54.2 × 0.20 = 10.84

Built-in AI 23.3 × 0.15 = 3.50

Automation 26.5 × 0.15 = 3.97

(15.99 + 6.18 + 10.84 + 3.50 + 3.97) ÷ (0.30 + 0.20 + 0.20 + 0.15 + 0.15) = 40.48 ÷ 1.00 = 40.5

Scores are stored to 1 decimal; the product page’s pills round to whole numbers for display. Each dimension below shows the stories, verdicts, and cited evidence behind its number.

Agent-ready53.3/100×0.30 of the PA blend

Outside-in: can YOUR agent reach and drive this product — API, MCP, CLI, headless runs, agent docs.

Point an agent at llms.txt or agent-oriented docsweight 2

2 (weight) × 9 (quality) × 1.0 (full) = 18.0 of 20 max

  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt“PROBE llms.txt: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt # ClickHouse > ClickHouse is a fast open-source column-oriented database management system (DBMS) optimized for real-ti”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Install the official ClickHouse agent skills into supported coding agents”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/guides/use-cases/ai-ml/MCP.md“Choose an MCP client or framework to connect an AI assistant to ClickHouse.”

Run the product headlessly / in CI for automationweight 2

2 (weight) × 7 (quality) × 1.0 (full) = 14.0 of 20 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/tools-and-utilities/clickhouse-local.md“developers can use SQL commands ... directly from the command line, providing a simple and efficient way to access ClickHouse features without the need for a full ClickHouse installation”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/tools-and-utilities/clickhouse-local.md“clickhouse-local is an easy-to-use version of ClickHouse that is ideal for developers who need to perform fast processing on local and remote files using SQL without having to install a full database server”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/get-started/setup/install.md“Run ClickHouse on your own machine to build, test, and experiment. Quick install gets you a single binary fast”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/get-started/setup/install.md“Run ClickHouse on your own machine to build, test, and experiment.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The X-ClickHouse-Format HTTP request header now explicitly selects the format of the response”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The X-ClickHouse-Format HTTP request header now explicitly selects the format of the response: it is an alias for the output_format setting, so it overrides the FORMAT clause of the query”
  • [github] https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse“curl https://clickhouse.com/ | sh”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli“official CLI documented at https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli”

Plug MCP servers into this product so it can use their toolsweight 3

n/a — not applicable to this product: excluded from numerator and denominator

no evidence cited — the verdict rests on absence of evidence, re-checked on refresh

Connect an agent via an official MCP serverweight 3

3 (weight) × 8 (quality) × 1.0 (full) = 24.0 of 30 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/guides/use-cases/ai-ml/MCP.md“Choose an MCP client or framework to connect an AI assistant to ClickHouse.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse“Connect ClickHouse to your AI assistants.”
  • [probe] https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse“official MCP server documented at https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse”

Use an official CLIweight 2

2 (weight) × 8 (quality) × 1.0 (full) = 16.0 of 20 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Install and manage local ClickHouse versions”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Install the official ClickHouse agent skills into supported coding agents”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“With clickhousectl you can: * Install and manage local ClickHouse versions * Launch and manage local ClickHouse servers”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“clickhousectl works as a version manager for ClickHouse, inspired by tools like uv and pnpm.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“curl https://clickhouse.com/cli | sh”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli“official CLI documented at https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli”

Drive the product through a documented public APIweight 3

3 (weight) × 8 (quality) × 1.0 (full) = 24.0 of 30 max

  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt“PROBE llms.txt: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt # ClickHouse > ClickHouse is a fast open-source column-oriented database management system (DBMS) optimized for real-ti”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json“PROBE openapi: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json — contains "openapi" key”
  • [probe] https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse“official MCP server documented at https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli“official CLI documented at https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/guides/use-cases/ai-ml/MCP.md“Choose an MCP client or framework to connect an AI assistant to ClickHouse.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse“Connect ClickHouse to your AI assistants.”

Issue scoped/least-privilege API credentials for an agentweight 2

2 (weight) × 0 (quality) × 0.0 (none) = 0.0 of 20 max

no evidence cited — the verdict rests on absence of evidence, re-checked on refresh

Build against official SDKsweight 2

2 (weight) × 0 (quality) × 0.0 (none) = 0.0 of 20 max

no evidence cited — the verdict rests on absence of evidence, re-checked on refresh

Subscribe to events via webhooksweight 2

2 (weight) × 0 (quality) × 0.0 (none) = 0.0 of 20 max

no evidence cited — the verdict rests on absence of evidence, re-checked on refresh

Agent-ready = 96.0 ÷ 180 × 100 = 53.3

API quality30.9/100×0.20 of the PA blend

The programmable surface once an agent is there — machine-readable spec, interactive docs, sandbox, versioning discipline.

Explore an interactive API reference with runnable examplesweight 2

2 (weight) × 0 (quality) × 0.0 (none) = 0.0 of 20 max

  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json“PROBE openapi: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json — contains "openapi" key”

Download a machine-readable API spec (OpenAPI or equivalent)weight 2

2 (weight) × 9 (quality) × 1.0 (full) = 18.0 of 20 max

  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json“PROBE openapi: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json — contains "openapi" key”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt“PROBE llms.txt: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt # ClickHouse > ClickHouse is a fast open-source column-oriented database management system (DBMS) optimized for real-ti”

Test against a sandbox environment without touching production dataweight 1

1 (weight) × 6 (quality) × 0.6 (partial) = 3.6 of 10 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/tools-and-utilities/clickhouse-local.md“developers can use SQL commands ... directly from the command line, providing a simple and efficient way to access ClickHouse features without the need for a full ClickHouse installation”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/tools-and-utilities/clickhouse-local.md“clickhouse-local is an easy-to-use version of ClickHouse that is ideal for developers who need to perform fast processing on local and remote files using SQL without having to install a full database server”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“With clickhousectl you can: * Install and manage local ClickHouse versions * Launch and manage local ClickHouse servers”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“clickhousectl works as a version manager for ClickHouse, inspired by tools like uv and pnpm.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/chdb“Experience the power of ClickHouse, in-process. With unparalleled performance, reliability, and scalability for any data-intensive application.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/get-started/setup/install.md“Run ClickHouse on your own machine to build, test, and experiment.”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli“official CLI documented at https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli”

Rely on versioned APIs with a documented deprecation policyweight 2

2 (weight) × 0 (quality) × 0.0 (none) = 0.0 of 20 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The default value of max_insert_threads changed from 1 to auto, which resolves to the number of CPU cores available to the server. This parallelizes INSERT SELECT by default”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The X-ClickHouse-Format HTTP request header now explicitly selects the format of the response”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The X-ClickHouse-Format HTTP request header now explicitly selects the format of the response: it is an alias for the output_format setting, so it overrides the FORMAT clause of the query”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json“PROBE openapi: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json — contains "openapi" key”

API quality = 21.6 ÷ 70 × 100 = 30.9

Openness54.2/100×0.20 of the PA blend

Can you leave, inspect, or self-host — data export, open source, portability.

Do everything through the API that I can do in the UIweight 2

2 (weight) × 6 (quality) × 0.6 (partial) = 7.2 of 20 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“With clickhousectl you can: * Install and manage local ClickHouse versions * Launch and manage local ClickHouse servers”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Push your local ClickHouse development to cloud”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Set up ClickHouse Cloud and create cloud-managed ClickHouse clusters * Create and manage ClickHouse Cloud Postgres services * Manage ClickHouse Cloud resources * Create and manage ClickPipes for data ingestion”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Create and manage ClickPipes for data ingestion (S3, Kafka, Kinesis, Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, BigQuery)”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Run and manage local Postgres instances * Execute queries against ClickHouse servers * Set up ClickHouse Cloud and create cloud-managed ClickHouse clusters”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Install and manage local ClickHouse versions * Launch and manage local ClickHouse servers”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The X-ClickHouse-Format HTTP request header now explicitly selects the format of the response”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The X-ClickHouse-Format HTTP request header now explicitly selects the format of the response: it is an alias for the output_format setting, so it overrides the FORMAT clause of the query”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json“PROBE openapi: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/openapi.json — contains "openapi" key”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/cloud/ai-functions-and-inference-services-waitlist“Sign up for private preview access to AI Functions and the AI Inference Service in ClickHouse Cloud. Use AI functions in si”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/cloud/clickstack-cloud-waitlist“Sign up for private preview access to ClickStack Cloud, a fully turnkey observability platform built on ClickHouse. Send OpenTelemetry logs, metrics, and traces to a managed en”

Export all of my data in open formats and leaveweight 3

3 (weight) × 5 (quality) × 0.6 (partial) = 9.0 of 30 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The X-ClickHouse-Format HTTP request header now explicitly selects the format of the response”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The X-ClickHouse-Format HTTP request header now explicitly selects the format of the response: it is an alias for the output_format setting, so it overrides the FORMAT clause of the query”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/pricing.md“Export backups to your own cloud account”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/products/cloud/getting-started/cloud-get-started.md“Migration guides from various platforms”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/tools-and-utilities/clickhouse-local.md“clickhouse-local is an easy-to-use version of ClickHouse that is ideal for developers who need to perform fast processing on local and remote files using SQL without having to install a full database server”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/get-started/setup/install.md“Run ClickHouse on your own machine to build, test, and experiment.”

Read the product's source under an open licenseweight 2

2 (weight) × 7 (quality) × 1.0 (full) = 14.0 of 20 max

  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt“PROBE llms.txt: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt # ClickHouse > ClickHouse is a fast open-source column-oriented database management system (DBMS) optimized for real-ti”
  • [github] https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse“curl https://clickhouse.com/ | sh”

Self-host the core productweight 3

3 (weight) × 8 (quality) × 1.0 (full) = 24.0 of 30 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/get-started/setup/install.md“Run ClickHouse on your own machine to build, test, and experiment. Quick install gets you a single binary fast”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/get-started/setup/install.md“Run ClickHouse on your own machine to build, test, and experiment.”
  • [github] https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse“curl https://clickhouse.com/ | sh”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt“PROBE llms.txt: HTTP 200 at https://clickhouse.com/llms.txt # ClickHouse > ClickHouse is a fast open-source column-oriented database management system (DBMS) optimized for real-ti”
  • [community] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28595419“We're using Clickhouse to power our in-product analytics. It's awesome but would love a managed service - it definitely requires a bit of management overhead.”
  • [community] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28595419“I learned of Clickhouse in an unpleasant way. It is a dependency of Sentry. Installing self-hosted sentry on OpenShift failed because Clickhouse wouldn't run in unprivileged containers.”
  • [community] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26316401“Overall positive experience: 3-node cluster up quickly with official Docker images, ingested billions of rows fast, great compression. Downsides: limited JOIN capabilities, not-quite-standard SQL syntax, and limited DELETE support.”

Openness = 54.2 ÷ 100 × 100 = 54.2

Built-in AI23.3/100×0.15 of the PA blend

Inside-out: how agentic the product itself is for its users — built-in assistants, autonomous features.

Get AI-generated insights and suggestions from my data inside the productweight 2

2 (weight) × 4 (quality) × 0.6 (partial) = 4.8 of 20 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/cloud/ai-notebooks-in-clickstack-waitlist“You can describe an issue in plain language, and the AI agent will query logs, traces, and metrics on your behalf — surfacing relevant data, charts, and summaries as a series of tiles.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/cloud/ai-functions-and-inference-services-waitlist“Sign up for private preview access to AI Functions and the AI Inference Service in ClickHouse Cloud. Use AI functions in si”

Set up automations that run autonomously in the backgroundweight 2

2 (weight) × 4 (quality) × 0.6 (partial) = 4.8 of 20 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/materialized-views/incremental-materialized-view.md“allow you to shift the cost of computation from query time to insert time, resulting in faster SELECT queries”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/materialized-views/incremental-materialized-view.md“Incremental Materialized Views (Materialized Views) allow you to shift the cost of computation from query time to insert time, resulting in faster SELECT queries.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Create and manage ClickPipes for data ingestion (S3, Kafka, Kinesis, Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, BigQuery)”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/guides/use-cases/ai-ml/MCP.md“Choose an MCP client or framework to connect an AI assistant to ClickHouse.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse“Connect ClickHouse to your AI assistants.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Install the official ClickHouse agent skills into supported coding agents”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/cloud/ai-notebooks-in-clickstack-waitlist“You can describe an issue in plain language, and the AI agent will query logs, traces, and metrics on your behalf — surfacing relevant data, charts, and summaries as a series of tiles.”

Delegate tasks to a built-in AI assistant inside the productweight 3

3 (weight) × 3 (quality) × 0.6 (partial) = 5.4 of 30 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/cloud/ai-notebooks-in-clickstack-waitlist“You can describe an issue in plain language, and the AI agent will query logs, traces, and metrics on your behalf — surfacing relevant data, charts, and summaries as a series of tiles.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/cloud/ai-functions-and-inference-services-waitlist“Sign up for private preview access to AI Functions and the AI Inference Service in ClickHouse Cloud. Use AI functions in si”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/cloud/clickstack-cloud-waitlist“Sign up for private preview access to ClickStack Cloud, a fully turnkey observability platform built on ClickHouse. Send OpenTelemetry logs, metrics, and traces to a managed en”

Operate the product with natural-language commandsweight 2

2 (weight) × 5 (quality) × 0.6 (partial) = 6.0 of 20 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli.md“Install the official ClickHouse agent skills into supported coding agents”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/guides/use-cases/ai-ml/MCP.md“Choose an MCP client or framework to connect an AI assistant to ClickHouse.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse“Connect ClickHouse to your AI assistants.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/cloud/ai-notebooks-in-clickstack-waitlist“You can describe an issue in plain language, and the AI agent will query logs, traces, and metrics on your behalf — surfacing relevant data, charts, and summaries as a series of tiles.”
  • [probe] https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse“official MCP server documented at https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse”

Built-in AI = 21.0 ÷ 90 × 100 = 23.3

Automation26.5/100×0.15 of the PA blend

Depth of automation primitives — rules, scheduling, bulk operations, webhooks.

Perform bulk operations across many items at onceweight 2

2 (weight) × 7 (quality) × 1.0 (full) = 14.0 of 20 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/best-practices.md“How to choose an insert strategy, including bulk and asynchronous inserts.”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/resources/changelogs/oss/2026“The default value of max_insert_threads changed from 1 to auto, which resolves to the number of CPU cores available to the server. This parallelizes INSERT SELECT by default”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/materialized-views/incremental-materialized-view.md“Incremental Materialized Views (Materialized Views) allow you to shift the cost of computation from query time to insert time, resulting in faster SELECT queries.”
  • [community] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26316401“I'm using Clickhouse to dump 1-5 billion rows per day from my company's traffic data, with 60 days retained, onto a single i5 desktop. Complex queries return in under 5 minutes. I was flabbergasted.”
  • [community] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26316401“Overall positive experience: 3-node cluster up quickly with official Docker images, ingested billions of rows fast, great compression. Downsides: limited JOIN capabilities, not-quite-standard SQL syntax, and limited DELETE support.”
  • [probe] https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse“official MCP server documented at https://github.com/ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse”
  • [probe] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli“official CLI documented at https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/interfaces/cli”

Define rules that trigger actions automatically on eventsweight 3

3 (weight) × 4 (quality) × 0.6 (partial) = 7.2 of 30 max

  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/materialized-views/incremental-materialized-view.md“allow you to shift the cost of computation from query time to insert time, resulting in faster SELECT queries”
  • [claimed-docs] https://clickhouse.com/docs/concepts/features/materialized-views/incremental-materialized-view.md“Incremental Materialized Views (Materialized Views) allow you to shift the cost of computation from query time to insert time, resulting in faster SELECT queries.”

Schedule recurring jobs or workflowsweight 2

2 (weight) × 0 (quality) × 0.0 (none) = 0.0 of 20 max

no evidence cited — the verdict rests on absence of evidence, re-checked on refresh

Version, review, and roll back my automationsweight 1

1 (weight) × 0 (quality) × 0.0 (none) = 0.0 of 10 max

no evidence cited — the verdict rests on absence of evidence, re-checked on refresh

Automation = 21.2 ÷ 80 × 100 = 26.5