ClickHouse Release 26.1

ClickHouse version 26.1 introduces a host of new features, performance optimizations, and bug fixes, including significant improvements in asynchronous insert deduplication with materialized views, new syntax for indexing projections, and support for the Variant type across all functions. The release enhances the capabilities of ClickHouse's analytics framework by addressing previous limitations in deduplication with materialized views, ensuring retry safety in complex ingestion pipelines, and optimizing operations on LowCardinality columns. Additionally, introspection and diagnostics for MergeTree tables and the Keeper state are improved with new system tables and functions, while the release also brings advancements in text indexing and the inclusion of a web UI and HTTP interface for Keeper. The ClickHouse community welcomes new contributors, and the release emphasizes the importance of community contributions in evolving the platform. Furthermore, a new Kubernetes operator is introduced, providing open-source support for automated cluster provisioning and management, enhancing usability and scalability for users deploying ClickHouse in containerized environments.