# ClickHouse vs Prometheus for High Cardinality, Part 1: Understanding the Problem

DevFeed: [ClickHouse vs Prometheus for High Cardinality, Part 1: Understanding the Problem](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/clickhouse-vs-prometheus-for-high-cardinality-part-1-understanding-the-problem-5158.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://clickhouse.com/blog/clickhouse-vs-promethous-high-cardinality-p1-understanding-the-problem>)

Author: Rory Crispin; Dale McDiarmid

Published: 2026-05-14T15:13:45Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [ClickHouse Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/clickhouse-blog.md>)

Topics: [clickhouse](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/clickhouse.md>), [Prometheus](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/prometheus.md>), [observability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/observability.md>), [Time Series](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/time-series.md>), [telemetry](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/telemetry.md>)

Tags: [architecture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/architecture.md>), [churn](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/churn.md>), [clickhouse](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/clickhouse.md>), [metrics](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/metrics.md>), [observability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/observability.md>), [prometheus](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/prometheus.md>), [time-series](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/time-series.md>)

## AI overview

This article explains why high cardinality creates challenges for Prometheus and other series-oriented observability systems. It examines the effects on series creation, memory use, querying, and churn, and introduces a comparison with how ClickHouse handles these workloads.

## Source excerpt

Why does high cardinality break Prometheus but not ClickHouse? In Part 1, we explore the architectural tradeoffs of Prometheus and other series-based systems, showing how cardinality impacts memory, ingestion, querying, and operational stability at scale.