Codecs

Codec NameRecommended Data TypesPerformance Notes
LZ4AnyUsed by default. Extremely fast; good compression; balanced speed and efficiency
ZSTD(level)AnyGood compression; pretty fast; best for high compression needs. Don’t use levels highter than 3.
LZ4HC(level)AnyLZ4 High Compression algorithm with configurable level; slower but better compression than LZ4, but decmpression is still fast.
DeltaInteger Types, Time Series Data, TimestampsPreprocessor (should be followed by some compression codec). Stores difference between neighboring values; good for monotonically increasing data.
DoubleDeltaInteger Types, Time Series DataStores difference between neighboring delta values; suitable for time series data
GorillaFloating Point TypesCalculates XOR between current and previous value; suitable for slowly changing numbers
T64Integer, Time Series Data, TimestampsPreprocessor (should be followed by some compression codec). Crops unused high bits; puts them into a 64x64 bit matrix; optimized for 64-bit data types
GCDInteger NumbersPreprocessor (should be followed by some compression codec). Greatest common divisor compression; divides values by a common divisor; effective for divisible integer sequences
FPCFloating Point NumbersDesigned for Float64; Algorithm detailed in FPC paper, ClickHouse PR #37553
ZSTD_QATAnyRequires hardware support for QuickAssist Technology (QAT) hardware; provides accelerated compression tasks
DEFLATE_QPLAnyRequires hardware support for Intel’s QuickAssist Technology for DEFLATE compression; enhanced performance for specific hardware
LowCardinalityStringIt’s not a codec, but a datatype modifier. Reduces representation size; effective for columns with low cardinality
NONENon-compressable data with very high entropy, like some random string, or some AggregateFunction statesNo compression at all. Can be used on the columns that can not be compressed anyway.

See

How to test different compression codecs

https://altinity.com/blog/2019/7/new-encodings-to-improve-clickhouse

https://www.percona.com/sites/default/files/ple19-slides/day1-pm/clickhouse-for-timeseries.pdf

Last modified 2024.01.27: Update _index.md (1b0a47d)