ClickHouse® BYOC vs. Fully Managed: 8 Deployment Options Compared

These are the main ClickHouse® deployment options when evaluating BYOC vs. fully managed:

1. Tinybird
2. ClickHouse® Cloud (Fully Managed)
3. ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC
4. Altinity.Cloud (Managed)
5. Altinity BYOC
6. Aiven for ClickHouse®
7. Self-Managed on Cloud
8. Self-Managed On-Premises

When deploying ClickHouse® for real-time analytics, one of the most critical architectural decisions is choosing between Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) and fully managed options. This choice impacts everything from compliance posture to operational burden to long-term costs.

ClickHouse® BYOC is a deployment model where the database runs as a managed service but inside your own cloud account and VPC. The promise: combine managed operations with control over infrastructure, networking, and data residency. The reality: it's more nuanced than marketing suggests.

BYOC emerged to address specific enterprise requirements that traditional SaaS deployments can't easily satisfy—data sovereignty regulations, strict security policies requiring private connectivity, and compliance frameworks that demand data never leaves your cloud perimeter.

But BYOC isn't "self-hosted lite." It's a hybrid responsibility model where the provider manages ClickHouse® operations while you maintain the cloud environment, networking, IAM policies, and security posture. The operational complexity doesn't disappear—it shifts.

This guide compares 8 deployment approaches across the BYOC vs. fully managed spectrum, examining real trade-offs in pricing, complexity, compliance, and performance. We'll help you determine which model actually fits your requirements—not which sounds best in theory.

Looking for real-time analytics without deployment complexity?

If your goal is building data products quickly with sub-100ms APIs—not managing infrastructure—Tinybird offers a different approach. It's a fully managed real-time data platform built on ClickHouse® that handles ingestion, transformation, and API publication. No cluster management, no BYOC complexity, no VPC configuration required.

1. Tinybird: Real-Time Data Platform Built on ClickHouse®

Before diving into traditional deployment models, consider whether you actually need to manage ClickHouse® infrastructure at all.

Tinybird isn't "ClickHouse® hosting"—it's a real-time data platform that uses ClickHouse® under the hood while completely abstracting database management. You focus on data and APIs; the platform handles everything else.

Beyond the BYOC vs. Managed Debate

The BYOC conversation often centers on a false dichotomy: "Do you want control or convenience?" Tinybird answers differently: you want results.

Most teams evaluating BYOC aren't database administrators who want to tune ClickHouse® settings. They're engineers building analytics features, data products, or real-time dashboards. They need fast queries on large datasets exposed as APIs—not cluster management skills.

Tinybird delivers exactly that. Write SQL queries, publish them as HTTP endpoints with one click, and serve thousands of concurrent users with sub-100ms latency. The entire infrastructure layer—scaling, high availability, security, compliance—is handled automatically.

Integrated Data Pipeline

Where BYOC deployments require you to build and maintain ingestion infrastructure separately, Tinybird includes fully managed connectors for Apache Kafka, Confluent Cloud, Amazon S3, Google BigQuery, Snowflake, DynamoDB, and more, ensuring robust real-time data ingestion across all major data sources.

The HTTP streaming endpoint lets you write thousands of events per second directly from application code, supporting high-throughput streaming data ingestion patterns. Data becomes queryable in milliseconds—no batch windows, no ETL delays, no lambda architectures.

Developer-First Workflows

Tinybird integrates directly with git-based version control. Define schemas (.datasource files), configure connections (.connection files), and build SQL-based API endpoints (.pipe files) in your local environment. Push to production with the CLI.

This is fundamentally different from BYOC, where infrastructure concerns dominate. With Tinybird, infrastructure is invisible—you work with data and queries, not VPCs and IAM roles.

Instant API Layer

Every SQL query in Tinybird becomes an authenticated, documented, scalable HTTP endpoint instantly, enabling creation of real-time dashboards and data APIs without custom backend code. No backend service to build, no API gateway to configure, no scaling logic to implement.

For user-facing analytics serving thousands of concurrent users with sub-100ms latency requirements, going from SQL to production API in seconds is transformative.

Predictable Pricing

Tinybird offers monthly plans with fixed pricing—Free tier to start, Developer plan around $25/month, and scalable Enterprise plans. Unlike consumption-based models where costs spike unpredictably, you know your monthly spend.

When Tinybird Makes Sense

Tinybird is ideal when:

• You need real-time analytics in production quickly (days, not months)
• Your use case involves user-facing dashboards or embedded analytics
• You want to avoid infrastructure management entirely
• You need sub-100ms query latency with automatic scaling
• You're building APIs on top of analytical data
• Time-to-value matters more than infrastructure control

2. ClickHouse® Cloud: The Official Fully Managed Service

ClickHouse® Cloud is the official managed service from ClickHouse® Inc.—the simplest path to deploying ClickHouse® without touching infrastructure.

Serverless Simplicity

ClickHouse® Cloud operates as a serverless platform where you configure services in terms of compute units and storage, and the system handles underlying infrastructure. Resources are billed per minute, providing flexibility for variable workloads.

Published SLA

Unlike BYOC options, ClickHouse® Cloud offers a contractual SLA for uptime. This is a critical differentiator for organizations requiring formal availability guarantees from their vendor.

Integrated Tooling

ClickPipes handles data ingestion from Kafka, S3, and other sources without building external pipelines. The console provides monitoring, query analysis, and management capabilities out of the box.

Pricing Structure

Compute costs range from approximately $0.22 to $0.39 per compute unit per hour. Storage costs around $25 per TB per month. A production configuration with reasonable capacity runs several hundred to several thousand dollars monthly depending on scale.

When ClickHouse® Cloud Fits

ClickHouse® Cloud suits teams wanting:

• Simplest, most direct ClickHouse® experience
• Formal SLA guarantees
• Variable or unpredictable workloads (per-minute billing)
• Official support from ClickHouse® creators
• No infrastructure management overhead

3. ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC: Managed Service in Your VPC

ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC deploys ClickHouse® as a managed service inside your own cloud account and VPC. The data plane (compute, storage, network traffic) lives in your infrastructure while ClickHouse® Inc. manages operations.

Architecture: Control Plane vs. Data Plane

Understanding BYOC requires separating two layers:

• Control plane (ClickHouse®'s infrastructure): Web console, API, orchestration, user management, billing
• Data plane (your VPC): ClickHouse® nodes, Kubernetes cluster (EKS), S3 storage, local caches, backups

Metrics and logs are stored within your BYOC VPC. Currently, logs are stored locally on EBS, with a future evolution toward "LogHouse" (a ClickHouse® service within your VPC) planned.

The SLA Reality

Here's the critical detail many miss: ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC does not offer a formal SLA for uptime. Because the data plane runs in your cloud account on resources outside ClickHouse®'s control, they can't guarantee availability the way they can for their fully managed service.

This fundamentally changes the value proposition. BYOC maximizes data residency control but complicates end-to-end availability guarantees.

Onboarding Complexity

BYOC onboarding on AWS involves multiple steps with lasting implications:

1. Bootstrap permissions: CloudFormation or Terraform creates an IAM role for ClickHouse®'s controllers to manage your infrastructure
2. Infrastructure provisioning: VPC, S3 buckets, EKS cluster—several decisions are irreversible once made

Critical decisions locked at setup:

• Region selection (must be a supported ClickHouse® Cloud region)
• VPC CIDR (default 10.0.0.0/16, recommend at least /22 for scaling; critical if you're doing VPC peering)
• Availability Zones (alignment matters for peering costs)

The documentation explicitly recommends a dedicated AWS account for BYOC deployments to isolate the footprint properly.

Platform Overhead

BYOC isn't just ClickHouse® pods. The deployment includes:

• ClickHouse® Server and ClickHouse® Keeper
• clickhouse-operator, aws-cluster-autoscaler, Istio
• Prometheus + Thanos monitoring stack
• Minimum three m5.xlarge nodes (one per AZ) for platform workloads

This baseline infrastructure cost exists regardless of your actual ClickHouse® workload size—one reason BYOC is positioned for enterprise-scale deployments.

Observability: Powerful but Unprotected

ClickHouse® BYOC deploys a Prometheus stack in your Kubernetes cluster. You can scrape metrics and integrate with Grafana, Datadog, or your existing monitoring.

Critical warning: The private load balancer URL for metrics does not support authentication. Security must come from network controls (security groups, VPC segmentation, routing policies)—not application-layer auth.

Cloud Support

Currently, AWS is GA for BYOC. GCP is in private preview (waitlist), and Azure is on the roadmap. If you're not on AWS or need multi-cloud BYOC, options are limited.

When ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC Fits

BYOC makes sense when:

• Compliance genuinely blocks standard SaaS (data must stay in your VPC)
• You need end-to-end private connectivity within your cloud
• Regulatory requirements demand data residency in your account
• You have a platform team capable of managing VPC, IAM, peering, and Kubernetes-adjacent concerns
• You can accept no formal SLA from the vendor

BYOC typically doesn't fit when:

• You need contractual uptime guarantees
• You lack dedicated platform/DevOps resources
• The compliance driver is ambiguous (BYOC adds complexity without clear benefit)

4. Altinity.Cloud: Expert ClickHouse® Management

Altinity is a company deeply specialized in ClickHouse® with core contributors since the project's early days. Altinity.Cloud is their managed service offering.

Deep Expertise

Altinity's differentiation is expertise. Their team includes ClickHouse® core contributors who understand the database at a level few others match. Support isn't just "help with service issues"—it extends to schema optimization, query tuning, and architectural guidance.

24/7 elite support is included for all customers from day one.

Deployment Flexibility

Altinity.Cloud offers two deployment modes:

• Managed (Altinity's cloud): Infrastructure on AWS, GCP, Azure, or Hetzner managed by Altinity
• BYOC: Altinity installs and manages ClickHouse® in your own cloud account

This flexibility lets you choose based on actual requirements rather than vendor limitations.

Transparent Pricing

Altinity uses straightforward usage-based pricing:

• ~$0.0625 per vCPU/hour on AWS/GCP/Azure
• ~$0.0347 per vCPU/hour on Hetzner BYOC (roughly 50% lower)
• Data egress included up to $500/month

The Hetzner option is notable: BYOC with dramatically lower infrastructure costs for teams where Hetzner's regions meet compliance requirements.

When Altinity.Cloud Fits

Altinity works well when:

• You want elite ClickHouse® expertise on your side
• Cost optimization matters (especially with Hetzner BYOC)
• You need BYOC flexibility with vendor support
• Multi-cloud deployment is a requirement

5. Altinity BYOC: Control with Expert Support

Altinity's BYOC offering lets them manage ClickHouse® operations while the infrastructure runs in your cloud account.

Ownership and Compliance

Altinity positions BYOC for organizations with requirements around:

• Data ownership and sovereignty
• Compliance frameworks requiring data in your perimeter
• Security policies mandating private infrastructure
• Cost control through infrastructure choice

No Lock-In Philosophy

Altinity emphasizes 100% open-source ClickHouse® with no proprietary extensions. If you need to migrate away, your data and schemas work with standard ClickHouse®.

Hetzner Integration

Altinity explicitly supports Hetzner for BYOC deployments—combining Hetzner's infrastructure cost advantage (50-70% lower than hyperscalers) with managed service convenience. For cost-sensitive deployments where Hetzner's regions satisfy requirements, this is compelling.

6. Aiven for ClickHouse®: Multi-Cloud Simplicity

Aiven is a European managed services provider offering ClickHouse® alongside Kafka, PostgreSQL, OpenSearch, and other open-source technologies.

Fixed Monthly Pricing

Aiven operates with fixed monthly plans, providing cost predictability. Base ClickHouse® plans start around $190/month for a 3-node high-availability cluster. All networking costs are included—no surprise egress charges.

Multi-Cloud Deployment

Deploy ClickHouse® on AWS, GCP, Azure, DigitalOcean, or UpCloud from the same console. Aiven handles the 3-node replication, networking, and disk configuration automatically.

Ecosystem Integration

For organizations already using Aiven for Kafka or other services, adding ClickHouse® on the same platform simplifies integration and billing.

When Aiven Fits

Aiven works well when:

• You want fixed, predictable monthly costs
• Multi-cloud deployment flexibility matters
• You're already using other Aiven services
• You prefer European vendor relationships

7. Self-Managed ClickHouse® on Cloud

Self-hosting ClickHouse® on your own cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure, or alternative clouds like Hetzner) provides maximum control at the cost of maximum operational burden.

Complete Control

You choose the exact ClickHouse® version, configure every setting, optimize hardware utilization, and tune for your specific workload. No vendor decisions constrain your architecture.

The Operational Reality

Self-managed ClickHouse® requires substantial engineering investment:

• Installation and configuration: ClickHouse® setup, cluster configuration, replication
• High availability: ZooKeeper/Keeper coordination, failover mechanisms
• Monitoring and alerting: Prometheus, Grafana, custom dashboards
• Backup and recovery: Automated backups, tested restore procedures
• Upgrades and maintenance: Version upgrades, security patches, schema migrations
• 24/7 operations: On-call rotation, incident response

Many organizations underestimate this burden. "We'll just run ClickHouse®" becomes "we need three engineers dedicated to database operations."

When Self-Managed Fits

Self-managed makes sense when:

• Your team has proven ClickHouse® operational expertise
• You're optimizing for lowest possible infrastructure costs (and can absorb engineering costs)
• You have dedicated DevOps/platform engineering resources
• Your workload is relatively stable and predictable
• You need configuration flexibility no managed service provides

8. Self-Managed On-Premises

On-premises ClickHouse® deployment represents the extreme of the control spectrum—maximum data sovereignty with maximum operational responsibility.

Air-Gapped and Regulated Environments

Some organizations genuinely cannot use cloud services. Financial institutions, government agencies, and defense contractors may have requirements that mandate on-premises infrastructure.

Total Responsibility

On-premises means owning everything: hardware procurement, network infrastructure, physical security, power and cooling, and all software operations. The total cost of ownership is often dramatically higher than it appears.

When On-Premises Fits

On-premises deployment fits when:

• Regulatory requirements genuinely prohibit cloud
• Air-gapped environments are mandatory
• You have existing data center infrastructure and expertise
• The use case justifies the substantial investment

Decision Framework: BYOC vs. Fully Managed

Start with the Real Requirement

Before choosing BYOC, ask: What specific requirement makes standard SaaS unacceptable?

Valid BYOC drivers:

• Explicit regulatory requirement for data in your cloud account
• Security policy requiring end-to-end private connectivity
• Compliance framework that fails audit with vendor-hosted data
• Contractual obligation specifying data residency

Weak BYOC drivers:

• "We prefer to own our infrastructure" (preference isn't requirement)
• "BYOC sounds more secure" (managed services often have better security practices)
• "We might need it someday" (complexity cost is immediate)

Evaluate SLA Requirements

If your organization requires contractual uptime guarantees from your database vendor, BYOC may be problematic. ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC explicitly states no formal SLA because the data plane runs on resources outside their control.

Fully managed services (ClickHouse® Cloud, Altinity.Cloud, Aiven, Tinybird) typically offer published SLAs.

Assess Team Capabilities

BYOC shifts operational burden—it doesn't eliminate it. You're no longer operating ClickHouse® directly, but you are operating:

• VPC configuration and peering
• IAM policies and security groups
• Kubernetes-adjacent concerns (if EKS-based)
• Network monitoring and troubleshooting
• Compliance documentation for your infrastructure

Do you have platform engineering resources for this? If not, BYOC may create more problems than it solves.

Calculate Total Cost

BYOC cost structure:

• Infrastructure costs (compute, storage, network) paid to your cloud provider
• Service fees paid to the ClickHouse® vendor
• Engineering time for VPC management, security, monitoring
• Opportunity cost of engineers managing infrastructure vs. building features

Fully managed cost structure:

• Service fees (typically higher per-unit than BYOC infrastructure)
• Minimal engineering overhead
• Engineers focused on product development

For many organizations, fully managed has lower total cost when engineering time is valued properly.

Consider Time-to-Value

BYOC onboarding involves:

• AWS account preparation
• IAM role configuration via CloudFormation/Terraform
• VPC CIDR planning and setup
• Peering configuration if needed
• Platform overhead deployment
• Validation and testing

Fully managed onboarding: sign up, configure a service, start querying.

If speed matters, fully managed wins decisively.

Why Tinybird Is the Best ClickHouse® BYOC and Managed Alternative

After comparing all deployment options across the BYOC vs. fully managed spectrum, one pattern emerges clearly: most teams don't actually need BYOC. They need real-time analytics that work.

The BYOC conversation often distracts from the real goal. Engineers spend weeks evaluating VPC configurations, IAM policies, and Kubernetes overhead when what they actually want is fast queries on large datasets exposed as APIs.

Tinybird cuts through this complexity entirely.

If you're still determining the best database for real-time analytics, evaluate solutions not just by control or compliance capabilities, but by how quickly they turn data into production-ready insights. Platforms like Tinybird minimize time-to-value while maintaining performance and simplicity far beyond typical BYOC deployments.

Zero Infrastructure Decisions

With BYOC, you're still making infrastructure decisions—just different ones. VPC CIDR ranges, availability zone alignment, peering configurations, security group rules. These decisions have lasting consequences and require platform engineering expertise.

Tinybird eliminates infrastructure decisions completely. You work with data and SQL. The platform handles everything else: scaling, high availability, security, compliance, monitoring. There's no VPC to configure, no Kubernetes cluster to maintain, no IAM roles to manage.

Faster Time-to-Production

BYOC onboarding takes weeks. You need AWS account preparation, CloudFormation or Terraform configuration, VPC setup, peering arrangements, and extensive validation. Many decisions are irreversible once made.

Tinybird onboarding takes minutes. Sign up, connect your data sources, write SQL queries, publish APIs. You can go from zero to production-ready analytics in a single afternoon.

For teams with competitive pressure to ship features, this difference is decisive.

Organizations that collect data from edge devices or sensors—typical of Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems—benefit particularly from fully managed ingestion and processing pipelines. These workloads demand continuous ingestion, real-time transformation, and fast query responses that Tinybird delivers without the operational burden of BYOC infrastructure.

Complete Data Platform, Not Just Database Hosting

BYOC gives you a managed database. You still need to build and maintain:

• Ingestion pipelines: How does data get into ClickHouse®?
• Transformation logic: Where do you run your data processing?
• API layer: How do applications consume query results?
• Authentication: How do you secure access to analytics?
• Documentation: How do developers understand available endpoints?

Tinybird includes all of this. Managed connectors for Kafka, S3, BigQuery, Snowflake, and more handle ingestion. SQL-based transformations run inside the platform. Every query becomes an authenticated, documented API endpoint automatically.

You're not assembling components—you're using a complete solution.

Predictable Costs Without Surprises

BYOC cost structures are complex. You pay your cloud provider for infrastructure (compute, storage, network), pay the vendor for managed services, and absorb engineering costs for VPC management and security. Costs can spike unpredictably based on data transfer, compute scaling, or unexpected operational needs.

Tinybird offers fixed monthly plans. You know exactly what you'll spend. The Free tier lets you start without commitment, the Developer plan provides production-ready capabilities at $25/month, and Enterprise plans scale to any requirement.

No surprise bills. No complex cost allocation. No hidden infrastructure charges.

Sub-100ms Query Latency at Any Scale

Performance isn't just about raw database speed—it's about consistent, reliable low latency under real-world conditions. BYOC deployments require careful tuning, capacity planning, and ongoing optimization to maintain performance as data grows.

Tinybird delivers sub-100ms query latency automatically. The platform handles optimization, caching, and scaling transparently. Whether you're querying 100 million or 100 billion rows, response times stay consistent.

For user-facing analytics where latency directly impacts user experience, this reliability is essential.

Built for Data Products, Not Database Administration

The fundamental question isn't "BYOC or fully managed?" It's "What are you trying to build?"

If you're building real-time analytics features—embedded dashboards, usage analytics, customer-facing metrics, operational monitoring—you want a platform designed for that outcome. Not a database you need to wrap with additional infrastructure.

Tinybird is built specifically for data products. The entire platform—from ingestion to transformation to API publication—is designed around the workflow of building and shipping analytics features.

SOC 2 Type II Compliance Built In

Security and compliance concerns often drive BYOC evaluation. Teams assume that data in their own VPC is inherently more secure or compliant.

In practice, managed platforms with dedicated security teams often provide better security posture than DIY infrastructure. Tinybird is SOC 2 Type II certified, with security practices reviewed and validated by independent auditors.

You get enterprise-grade security without building and maintaining it yourself.

The Bottom Line

BYOC solves a specific problem: regulatory or contractual requirements that explicitly mandate data residence in your cloud account. If you have that requirement—truly have it, not just prefer it—BYOC may be necessary.

For everyone else, Tinybird offers a faster, simpler, more cost-effective path to real-time analytics. You skip the infrastructure complexity, avoid the operational burden, and focus entirely on building data products that deliver value.

Ready to build real-time analytics without infrastructure complexity? Try Tinybird free and go from data to production APIs in minutes, not months.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What exactly is ClickHouse® BYOC?

ClickHouse® BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) deploys ClickHouse® as a managed service inside your own cloud account and VPC. The data plane (compute, storage, data) lives in your infrastructure while the vendor manages operations. It's a hybrid responsibility model—not self-hosted, but not traditional SaaS either.

Does ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC have an SLA?

No. ClickHouse® Cloud explicitly states that BYOC does not have a formal SLA for uptime because the data plane runs on resources in your cloud account, outside their control. Standard ClickHouse® Cloud (fully managed) does have a published SLA.

Is BYOC cheaper than fully managed?

Not necessarily. BYOC infrastructure costs may be lower, but you add vendor service fees plus engineering time for VPC management, security, and monitoring. Total cost of ownership often favors fully managed when engineering hours are valued properly.

When should I choose BYOC over fully managed?

Choose BYOC when you have a specific, validated requirement that blocks standard SaaS: regulatory data residency, compliance frameworks requiring data in your perimeter, or security policies mandating private connectivity. If the requirement is ambiguous, fully managed is typically better.

Can I use BYOC on any cloud provider?

Support varies by vendor. ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC is GA on AWS, private preview on GCP, and roadmap for Azure. Altinity supports BYOC on AWS, GCP, Azure, and Hetzner. Check vendor documentation for current availability.

What's the difference between Tinybird and ClickHouse® hosting?

Tinybird is a real-time data platform built on ClickHouse®—not database hosting. It includes ingestion, transformation, and API publication in one integrated service. You write SQL and get instant APIs; infrastructure is completely abstracted. ClickHouse® hosting (managed or BYOC) provides database infrastructure you build on top of.

How much operational work does BYOC require?

BYOC shifts operational burden rather than eliminating it. You no longer operate ClickHouse® directly, but you manage VPC configuration, IAM policies, network security, peering, and monitoring. Organizations without dedicated platform teams often underestimate this burden.

What's the minimum infrastructure for ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC?

ClickHouse® Cloud BYOC on AWS requires a baseline of three m5.xlarge nodes (one per AZ) for platform workloads, plus your actual ClickHouse® services. This fixed overhead is one reason BYOC targets enterprise-scale deployments.