Does ClickHouse support distributed joins?

Yes, ClickHouse supports distributed joins on a cluster.

When the data is co-located on the cluster (e.g., the join is performed by the user identifier, which is also a sharding key), ClickHouse provides a way to perform the join without data movement on the network.

When the data isn't co-located, ClickHouse allows a broadcast join, when parts of the joined data are distributed across the nodes of the cluster.

As of 2025, ClickHouse does not perform shuffle joins, meaning neither side of the join is redistributed across the cluster network according to the join keys.

Tip

For information on joins in ClickHouse more generally, see the "JOIN clause" page.