Tour of the ClickHouse Cloud UI: Console, SQL Editor, and Monitoring

ClickHouse Cloud ships with a web-based console at console.clickhouse.cloud that provides service management, a SQL editor, table exploration, data visualization, and monitoring — all without installing any client tools.

This guide walks through the key areas of the UI and what you can do with each.

The Cloud Console Overview

When you log in, the console shows your organization dashboard — a top-level view of all your ClickHouse Cloud services. From here you can:

• Create new services (choosing cloud provider, region, and tier)
• View service status (running, idle, stopped)
• Access billing and usage information
• Manage team members and access controls
• Configure API keys and integrations

Each service has its own detail page with tabs for SQL console, monitoring, settings, and backups.

SQL Console

The SQL console is the most-used part of the UI. It's a browser-based query editor connected directly to your ClickHouse service.

Query Editor

The editor supports:

• Syntax highlighting for ClickHouse SQL
• Autocomplete for table names, column names, and functions
• Multiple query tabs — click the + button to open additional editors
• Run queries with the Run button or Cmd/Ctrl + Enter
• Run selected text — highlight a portion of your SQL and run just that selection
• Run query at cursor with Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + Enter when you have multiple statements
• Cancel running queries with the Cancel button or Esc
• Semicolons separate statements — write multiple queries in one tab and run them sequentially

AI Query Assistance

The SQL console includes an AI assistant that can:

• Convert natural language questions into SQL queries based on your table schemas
• Help debug failing queries by analyzing errors in context
• Suggest optimizations based on your table structure

This is useful for teams where not everyone is fluent in ClickHouse SQL — analysts can describe what they want in plain English and get a working query.

Saving and Sharing Queries

Queries can be saved (Cmd/Ctrl + S) and organized for later access. Saved queries get permanent URLs that include parameter values, making them easy to share via links.

Sharing supports four access levels:

• Owner: Full control including sharing permissions
• Write: Can edit the query
• Read-only: Can view and run but not modify
• No access: Hidden from the user

This makes the SQL console viable for lightweight collaboration — teams can build a shared library of common queries without needing a separate BI tool.

Table Explorer

The left sidebar displays your database and table structure:

• Select a database from the dropdown at the top
• Tables are listed below, expandable to show columns and their data types
• Click a table name to open it in a table view tab showing data in a spreadsheet-like format

The table view supports:

• Browsing data in paginated 30-row increments
• Sorting by any column (ascending/descending, multiple sort keys with priority ordering)
• Filtering with data-type-aware options (e.g., numeric ranges, string contains, date ranges)
• Selecting and copying data — formatting preserves column structure when pasting into spreadsheets
• Cell inspector — right-click any cell and select "Inspect Cell" to view large values that don't fit in the grid
• Create Query from filters — after setting up sorts and filters, click "Create Query" to generate the equivalent SQL. This is a great way to learn ClickHouse SQL by starting with the visual interface.

Query Results

After running a query, the results pane offers:

• Search across results — a search box filters the returned rows case-insensitively, useful for spotting specific values without adding another WHERE clause
• Pagination control — switch between showing all results on one page or paginating with custom page sizes
• CSV export — download results via the ••• menu in the toolbar
• Cell inspector — same right-click inspection for large cell values

Data Visualization

The SQL console includes basic charting for quick data exploration:

1. Run a query that returns data suitable for visualization
2. Click "Chart" in the result pane toolbar
3. Drag fields to the x-axis and y-axis
4. Select from 10 chart types including bar, line, area, and others
5. Customize titles, subtitles, axis labels, label orientation, and min/max ranges

Charts automatically use the saved query name as the title. This is useful for quick visual checks and simple dashboards, though teams with serious visualization needs will want dedicated tools like Grafana, Superset, or Metabase connected to ClickHouse.

Monitoring

The service detail page includes monitoring dashboards showing:

• Query performance: throughput, latency percentiles, and error rates
• Resource utilization: CPU, memory, and disk usage across compute nodes
• Connections: active connections and connection pool metrics
• Insert metrics: rows inserted, insert latency, and part merge activity

For production services, these built-in dashboards provide baseline observability. They're sufficient for spotting obvious issues (CPU spikes, memory pressure, insert failures) but don't provide the depth needed for serious performance tuning or root-cause analysis.

Beyond Built-In Monitoring

The built-in monitoring shows you what's happening but not why or what to do about it. For production ClickHouse deployments, consider:

• Grafana dashboards backed by ClickHouse's system.metrics, system.query_log, and system.parts tables for deeper visibility
• AI-powered monitoring through platforms like Pulse, which provide continuous analysis, root-cause diagnosis, and actionable recommendations rather than just metric charts
• Alerting via external tools — the ClickHouse Cloud UI doesn't offer configurable alerts for custom thresholds

Service Management

The settings area for each service lets you:

• Scale compute — adjust memory allocation and (on Scale/Enterprise) configure autoscaling limits
• Manage networking — set up IP allowlists or private endpoints
• Configure backups — adjust backup schedule and retention
• View connection strings — get the hostname, port, and credentials for connecting external tools
• Manage users and roles — create database users with specific permissions
• Pause/resume services — manually idle a service to stop compute billing

ClickPipes

The ClickPipes section provides a visual interface for setting up managed data ingestion:

• Connect to data sources (Kafka, S3, GCS, Postgres, and others)
• Configure mappings between source schemas and ClickHouse tables
• Monitor ingestion throughput and error rates
• No code required — configuration is entirely through the UI

Limitations of the Built-In UI

While the ClickHouse Cloud console is capable for development and light production use, there are areas where dedicated tools work better:

Self-Managed ClickHouse UI Options

If you're running self-managed ClickHouse (not Cloud), you don't get the cloud console. Your options for a web UI include:

• ClickHouse Play (/play HTTP endpoint) — a minimal built-in web interface for running queries. Enabled by default on the HTTP port.
• Tabix — open-source web UI specifically designed for ClickHouse
• DBeaver — free desktop database client with ClickHouse support
• DataGrip — JetBrains IDE with advanced ClickHouse features
• Grafana — for monitoring dashboards using ClickHouse as a data source

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I connect external tools alongside the built-in SQL console?

Yes. The ClickHouse Cloud service exposes standard connection endpoints (native protocol on port 9440, HTTP on port 8443). You can use the SQL console, DBeaver, DataGrip, clickhouse-client, or any ClickHouse-compatible tool simultaneously.

Q: Is there keyboard shortcut support in the SQL console?

Yes. Key shortcuts include Cmd/Ctrl + Enter (run query), Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + Enter (run query at cursor), Cmd/Ctrl + S (save query), and Esc (cancel running query).

Q: Can I create persistent dashboards in the ClickHouse Cloud UI?

The charting feature is attached to individual queries, not organized into dashboards. For persistent, multi-chart dashboards, connect Grafana, Superset, or Metabase to your ClickHouse service.

Q: Does the SQL console work with all ClickHouse data types?

Yes. The cell inspector is particularly useful for complex types like Nested, Array, Map, and JSON columns where the grid view truncates large values.

Q: Can multiple team members use the SQL console simultaneously?

Yes. Each user gets their own session and saved queries. The sharing feature lets team members collaborate on specific queries with configurable access levels.

Q: How does the AI query assistant handle sensitive data?

The AI assistant reads your table schemas (column names and types) to generate queries. It doesn't access your actual data. The generated SQL runs in your session with your permissions when you explicitly execute it.