ClickHouse Laravel

A production-ready ClickHouse database driver for Laravel with full Eloquent ORM support. Use ClickHouse the same way you use MySQL in Laravel.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• Installation
• Configuration
• Quick Start
• Query Builder
• ClickHouse-Specific Features
• Schema & Migrations
• Eloquent Model
• Batch Insert
• Feature Comparison
• Troubleshooting
• Testing
• Contributing
• License

Requirements

• PHP 8.1 or higher
• Laravel 8.x through 13.x
• ClickHouse server (any recent version)

Installation

composer require kundan-in/clickhouse-laravel

Publish the configuration file:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="KundanIn\ClickHouseLaravel\ClickHouseServiceProvider" --tag="clickhouse-config"

Configuration

Add your ClickHouse connection to config/database.php:

'connections' => [
    // ... other connections

    'clickhouse' => [
        'driver'          => 'clickhouse',
        'host'            => env('CLICKHOUSE_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
        'port'            => env('CLICKHOUSE_PORT', 8123),
        'username'        => env('CLICKHOUSE_USERNAME', 'default'),
        'password'        => env('CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD', ''),
        'database'        => env('CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE', 'default'),
        'timeout'         => env('CLICKHOUSE_TIMEOUT', 120),
        'connect_timeout' => env('CLICKHOUSE_CONNECT_TIMEOUT', 5),
        'settings'        => [
            'readonly'           => env('CLICKHOUSE_READONLY', 0),
            'max_execution_time' => env('CLICKHOUSE_MAX_EXECUTION_TIME', 60),
        ],
    ],
],

Environment Variables

Quick Start

Create a Model

use KundanIn\ClickHouseLaravel\Database\ClickHouseModel;

class AnalyticsEvent extends ClickHouseModel
{
    protected $connection = 'clickhouse';
    protected $table = 'analytics_events';
    public $timestamps = false;

    protected $fillable = [
        'user_id', 'event_name', 'properties', 'created_at',
    ];

    protected function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'properties' => \KundanIn\ClickHouseLaravel\Casts\ClickHouseJson::class,
        ];
    }
}

Basic Operations

// Retrieve records
$events = AnalyticsEvent::where('user_id', 123)->limit(10)->get();
$event  = AnalyticsEvent::where('event_name', 'page_view')->first();
$count  = AnalyticsEvent::count();

// Insert
AnalyticsEvent::create([
    'user_id'    => 123,
    'event_name' => 'page_view',
    'created_at' => now(),
]);

// Aggregations
$total = AnalyticsEvent::sum('duration');
$avg   = AnalyticsEvent::avg('duration');
$max   = AnalyticsEvent::max('duration');

Query Builder

All standard Laravel query builder methods work:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;

// Where clauses
DB::connection('clickhouse')->table('events')
    ->where('status', 'active')
    ->where('score', '>', 80)
    ->whereIn('type', ['click', 'view'])
    ->whereBetween('created_at', ['2024-01-01', '2024-12-31'])
    ->whereNotNull('session_id')
    ->limit(100)
    ->get();

// Aggregations with grouping
DB::connection('clickhouse')->table('events')
    ->selectRaw('device_type, count() as total, avg(duration) as avg_duration')
    ->groupBy('device_type')
    ->having('total', '>', 100)
    ->orderByRaw('total DESC')
    ->get();

// Joins
DB::connection('clickhouse')->table('events')
    ->join('users', 'events.user_id', '=', 'users.id')
    ->select('events.*', 'users.name')
    ->get();

// Subqueries, raw expressions, pagination
DB::connection('clickhouse')->table('events')
    ->whereRaw('toDate(created_at) = today()')
    ->pluck('event_name');

ClickHouse-Specific Features

SAMPLE - Approximate Queries

// Query only 10% of the data (requires SAMPLE BY in table definition)
AnalyticsEvent::query()->sample(0.1)->count();

FINAL - Deduplicated Reads

// Force merge for ReplacingMergeTree tables
AnalyticsEvent::query()->final()->where('user_id', 123)->get();

PREWHERE - I/O Optimization

// Filter before reading full columns (reduces disk I/O)
AnalyticsEvent::query()
    ->prewhere('date', '>=', '2024-01-01')
    ->where('status', 'active')
    ->get();

Array Operations

// Check if array column contains a value
AnalyticsEvent::query()->whereArrayHas('tags', 'important')->get();

// Check if array has any of the given values
AnalyticsEvent::query()->whereArrayHasAny('tags', ['urgent', 'important'])->get();

// Check if array has all of the given values
AnalyticsEvent::query()->whereArrayHasAll('tags', ['reviewed', 'approved'])->get();

Advanced Grouping

AnalyticsEvent::query()
    ->selectRaw('device_type, browser, count() as cnt')
    ->groupByWithRollup('device_type', 'browser')
    ->get();

AnalyticsEvent::query()
    ->selectRaw('device_type, browser, count() as cnt')
    ->groupByWithCube('device_type', 'browser')
    ->get();

ClickHouse Aggregation Functions

// Approximate distinct count (fast)
$approxUnique = DB::connection('clickhouse')->table('events')->uniq('user_id');

// Exact distinct count
$exactUnique = DB::connection('clickhouse')->table('events')->uniqExact('user_id');

Schema & Migrations

Creating Tables

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;
use KundanIn\ClickHouseLaravel\Database\ClickHouseBlueprint;

Schema::connection('clickhouse')->create('analytics_events', function (ClickHouseBlueprint $table) {
    $table->uint64('id');
    $table->string('event_name');
    $table->uint32('user_id');
    $table->float64('duration');
    $table->array('tags', 'String');
    $table->lowCardinality('device_type', 'String');
    $table->dateTime64('created_at', 3);

    $table->engine('MergeTree');
    $table->orderBy(['id', 'created_at']);
    $table->partitionBy('toYYYYMM(created_at)');
    $table->ttl('created_at + INTERVAL 90 DAY');
    $table->settings(['index_granularity' => 8192]);
});

Engine Types

// ReplacingMergeTree (deduplication)
$builder = Schema::connection('clickhouse')->getSchemaBuilder();
$builder->createReplacingMergeTree('events', function ($table) {
    $table->uint64('id');
    $table->uint32('version');
    $table->string('data');
    $table->orderBy('id');
}, 'version');

// SummingMergeTree (automatic aggregation)
$builder->createSummingMergeTree('daily_stats', function ($table) {
    $table->date('date');
    $table->string('page');
    $table->uint64('views');
    $table->orderBy(['date', 'page']);
}, ['views']);

// CollapsingMergeTree (row versioning)
$builder->createCollapsingMergeTree('sessions', function ($table) {
    $table->uint64('user_id');
    $table->dateTime('started_at');
    $table->int8('sign');
    $table->orderBy('user_id');
}, 'sign');

Available Column Types

Materialized Views

$builder = Schema::connection('clickhouse')->getSchemaBuilder();

$builder->createMaterializedView(
    'events_daily',
    'SELECT toDate(created_at) as day, count() as cnt FROM events GROUP BY day',
    'events_daily_agg'
);

$builder->dropMaterializedView('events_daily');

Eloquent Model

Custom Casts

use KundanIn\ClickHouseLaravel\Casts\ClickHouseArray;
use KundanIn\ClickHouseLaravel\Casts\ClickHouseJson;

class Event extends ClickHouseModel
{
    protected function casts(): array
    {
        return [
            'tags'       => ClickHouseArray::class . ':String',
            'properties' => ClickHouseJson::class,
        ];
    }
}

Soft Deletes

Use Laravel's SoftDeletes trait as normal. The driver compiles DELETE to ClickHouse's ALTER TABLE ... DELETE syntax:

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\SoftDeletes;

class Event extends ClickHouseModel
{
    use SoftDeletes;
}

Facade

use KundanIn\ClickHouseLaravel\Facades\ClickHouse;

$results = ClickHouse::select('SELECT count() as cnt FROM events');
$healthy = ClickHouse::healthCheck();
$version = ClickHouse::getServerVersion();

Batch Insert

For high-throughput data loading, use bulkInsert() which uses ClickHouse's native columnar format:

$connection = DB::connection('clickhouse');

$rows = [
    ['user_id' => 1, 'event' => 'click', 'created_at' => '2024-01-01 00:00:00'],
    ['user_id' => 2, 'event' => 'view',  'created_at' => '2024-01-01 00:00:01'],
    // ... thousands more rows
];

$connection->bulkInsert('events', $rows);

This is significantly faster than individual INSERT statements for large datasets.

Feature Comparison

Troubleshooting

"Too few arguments to Grammar::__construct()"

Ensure you're using v1.4.0+ which supports Laravel 12/13.

UPDATE/DELETE require WHERE clause

ClickHouse's ALTER TABLE UPDATE/DELETE operations require a WHERE clause for safety. This is enforced by the driver.

"ClickHouse does not support auto-incrementing IDs"

Use UUID columns or application-generated IDs instead of insertGetId().

Soft deletes not working

Use Laravel's standard SoftDeletes trait. The driver handles the ALTER TABLE ... DELETE syntax automatically.

Query timeout

Increase CLICKHOUSE_TIMEOUT (HTTP request timeout) and CLICKHOUSE_MAX_EXECUTION_TIME (server-side query limit) in your .env.

Testing

# Run the test suite
composer test

# Run with coverage
composer test-coverage

# Run a specific test
vendor/bin/phpunit --filter=test_name

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.