Why we maintain a ClickHouse ® fork at Tinybird (how it's different)

Tinybird's decision to maintain a private fork of the ClickHouse® database stems from a need for greater control over their roadmap, performance, and innovation to better serve their customers in the real-time analytics space. Despite remaining active contributors to the ClickHouse® community, Tinybird found it necessary to address limitations and potential future changes in the open-source version that could impact their operations, such as the deprecation of zero-copy replication essential for their infrastructure. The private fork allows Tinybird to prioritize customer-centric improvements, optimize build processes, and introduce exclusive features that align with their business needs, such as the packed part format, a new Backup Database engine, and UNION support for materialized views. This autonomy enables Tinybird to respond swiftly to bugs and performance issues, providing them with a competitive edge while still contributing to the broader ClickHouse® ecosystem. The challenges of maintaining this fork, including adapting the CI/CD infrastructure, have been outweighed by the benefits of flexibility, performance enhancements, and cost savings, underscoring the strategic importance of this approach for Tinybird.