ClickHouse MCP Server vs Grafana MCP Server
Updated June 2026Compare these two MCP servers to find which one fits your needs best.
Description
ClickHouse MCP Server is ClickHouse's official MCP server (ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse) that connects Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients to a ClickHouse cluster for fast analytical querying over natural language. Its primary tool, run_query, executes arbitrary SQL against your cluster in read-only mode by default (CLICKHOUSE_ALLOW_WRITE_ACCESS=false) so an AI assistant can explore tables, aggregate billions of rows, and answer analytics questions without risk of mutating data — writes can be enabled explicitly when needed. Companion tools list databases and tables and return schema metadata (including the full create_table_query, with an option to omit per-column detail for lighter responses). A second tool set embeds chDB, ClickHouse's in-process engine, via run_chdb_select_query, letting the assistant query files, URLs, and external databases directly without an ETL step (enabled with the optional mcp-clickhouse[chdb] extra). Destructive statements are gated a second time: even with writes enabled, DROP and TRUNCATE require CLICKHOUSE_ALLOW_DROP=true as well. The server supports both stdio and HTTP/SSE transports; on HTTP/SSE authentication is required rather than optional — startup fails unless a static bearer token (CLICKHOUSE_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN), a FastMCP OAuth/OIDC provider (Azure Entra, Google, GitHub, WorkOS via FASTMCP_SERVER_AUTH), or an explicit local-development opt-out (CLICKHOUSE_MCP_AUTH_DISABLED) is configured. Connection is configured through CLICKHOUSE_HOST, CLICKHOUSE_PORT, CLICKHOUSE_USER, and CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD, with ClickHouse Cloud, self-hosted, and the public SQL playground all supported.
The official Grafana MCP server connects Claude and other AI assistants directly to your Grafana instance and its surrounding observability ecosystem, turning natural-language questions into dashboard lookups, incident investigations, and datasource queries. Dashboard tools cover search, retrieval, JSONPath-scoped property extraction, patch-based editing, and per-panel query/datasource introspection, with context-window-aware helpers like get_dashboard_summary so an agent never has to pull a full multi-megabyte dashboard JSON just to answer a simple question. Query tools speak PromQL against Prometheus (including histogram-percentile helpers), LogQL against Loki, and native query languages for InfluxDB, ClickHouse, CloudWatch, Graphite, Athena, Snowflake, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, and Quickwit datasources — most gated behind opt-in --enabled-tools flags to keep the default tool surface lean. It also wraps Grafana Incident for creating and updating incidents, Sift for automated error-pattern and slow-request investigations, full alerting CRUD (rules, contact points, notification policies) across Grafana-managed and external Alertmanager sources, Grafana OnCall schedule/shift/alert-group management, RBAC-gated admin tools for teams/users/roles, deeplink generation so the LLM never has to guess a dashboard URL, annotations, snapshots, PNG rendering via the Grafana Image Renderer, and provisioning-repo validation for git-sync workflows. Authentication is a Grafana service account token (Editor role, or granular RBAC scopes) passed as GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN alongside GRAFANA_URL, and every tool category can be individually disabled to control context-window usage. On install, the recommended route is uvx: `uvx mcp-grafana` pulls the PyPI package mcp-grafana, which is published by Grafana Labs from this same repository — so despite the server being written in Go, the copy-paste command most Claude Desktop and Cursor configs use is a Python-tooling one, not a binary download. The alternatives are `go install github.com/grafana/mcp-grafana/cmd/mcp-grafana@latest` for a real binary, or the grafana/mcp-grafana container — `-t stdio` for local clients, or the default HTTP mode on :8000 (add `-t streamable-http`) with MCP_GRAFANA_SERVER_TOKEN set to authenticate callers when you expose it.
Install Type
pip
pip
Categories
🗄️ database📊 analytics
📊 analytics🔧 devops
Integrations
🟣 claude-desktop⚡ cursor💙 vs-code🏄 windsurf🤖 cline
🟣 claude-desktop⚡ cursor💙 vs-code🏄 windsurf🤖 cline
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between ClickHouse MCP Server and Grafana MCP Server?
ClickHouse MCP Server and Grafana MCP Server are both MCP servers but differ in their categories and capabilities. ClickHouse MCP Server (database, analytics) is ClickHouse MCP Server is ClickHouse's official MCP server (ClickHouse/mcp-clickhouse) that connects Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients to a ClickHouse cluster for fast analytical querying over natural language. Its primary tool, run_query, executes arbitrary SQL against your cluster in read-only mode by default (CLICKHOUSE_ALLOW_WRITE_ACCESS=false) so an AI assistant can explore tables, aggregate billions of rows, and answer analytics questions without risk of mutating data — writes can be enabled explicitly when needed. Companion tools list databases and tables and return schema metadata (including the full create_table_query, with an option to omit per-column detail for lighter responses). A second tool set embeds chDB, ClickHouse's in-process engine, via run_chdb_select_query, letting the assistant query files, URLs, and external databases directly without an ETL step (enabled with the optional mcp-clickhouse[chdb] extra). Destructive statements are gated a second time: even with writes enabled, DROP and TRUNCATE require CLICKHOUSE_ALLOW_DROP=true as well. The server supports both stdio and HTTP/SSE transports; on HTTP/SSE authentication is required rather than optional — startup fails unless a static bearer token (CLICKHOUSE_MCP_AUTH_TOKEN), a FastMCP OAuth/OIDC provider (Azure Entra, Google, GitHub, WorkOS via FASTMCP_SERVER_AUTH), or an explicit local-development opt-out (CLICKHOUSE_MCP_AUTH_DISABLED) is configured. Connection is configured through CLICKHOUSE_HOST, CLICKHOUSE_PORT, CLICKHOUSE_USER, and CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD, with ClickHouse Cloud, self-hosted, and the public SQL playground all supported. while Grafana MCP Server (analytics, devops) is The official Grafana MCP server connects Claude and other AI assistants directly to your Grafana instance and its surrounding observability ecosystem, turning natural-language questions into dashboard lookups, incident investigations, and datasource queries. Dashboard tools cover search, retrieval, JSONPath-scoped property extraction, patch-based editing, and per-panel query/datasource introspection, with context-window-aware helpers like get_dashboard_summary so an agent never has to pull a full multi-megabyte dashboard JSON just to answer a simple question. Query tools speak PromQL against Prometheus (including histogram-percentile helpers), LogQL against Loki, and native query languages for InfluxDB, ClickHouse, CloudWatch, Graphite, Athena, Snowflake, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, and Quickwit datasources — most gated behind opt-in --enabled-tools flags to keep the default tool surface lean. It also wraps Grafana Incident for creating and updating incidents, Sift for automated error-pattern and slow-request investigations, full alerting CRUD (rules, contact points, notification policies) across Grafana-managed and external Alertmanager sources, Grafana OnCall schedule/shift/alert-group management, RBAC-gated admin tools for teams/users/roles, deeplink generation so the LLM never has to guess a dashboard URL, annotations, snapshots, PNG rendering via the Grafana Image Renderer, and provisioning-repo validation for git-sync workflows. Authentication is a Grafana service account token (Editor role, or granular RBAC scopes) passed as GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN alongside GRAFANA_URL, and every tool category can be individually disabled to control context-window usage. On install, the recommended route is uvx: `uvx mcp-grafana` pulls the PyPI package mcp-grafana, which is published by Grafana Labs from this same repository — so despite the server being written in Go, the copy-paste command most Claude Desktop and Cursor configs use is a Python-tooling one, not a binary download. The alternatives are `go install github.com/grafana/mcp-grafana/cmd/mcp-grafana@latest` for a real binary, or the grafana/mcp-grafana container — `-t stdio` for local clients, or the default HTTP mode on :8000 (add `-t streamable-http`) with MCP_GRAFANA_SERVER_TOKEN set to authenticate callers when you expose it..
Which MCP server should I choose: ClickHouse MCP Server or Grafana MCP Server?
Choose ClickHouse MCP Server if you need database capabilities and prefer pip installation. Choose Grafana MCP Server if you need analytics capabilities and prefer pip installation. Consider your specific use case and integration requirements.
Can I use both ClickHouse MCP Server and Grafana MCP Server together?
Yes, you can use multiple MCP servers together in Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, and other MCP-compatible clients.ClickHouse MCP Server and Grafana MCP Servercan complement each other if their capabilities don't overlap.