Clickhouse ships with several built-in web tools that most people don’t know about. No installation, no setup - just hit the right endpoint on port 8123.
#Accessing the dashboards
If your Clickhouse server isn’t directly accessible, create an SSH tunnel:
ssh -L 8123:127.0.0.1:8123 your-clickhouse-server
Now localhost:8123 points to your server.
#The dashboards
#/dashboard - Operations overview
http://localhost:8123/dashboard
Real-time insight into server internals. Shows queries, memory usage, merges, replication lag - basically a live view of system.* tables in a nice UI. This is your first stop when something feels slow.
#/merges - Merge history
http://localhost:8123/merges
Visualizes the history of merge processes. Useful when you’re debugging high part counts or wondering why your table isn’t consolidating. Shows merge duration, parts involved, and throughput.
#/play - SQL playground
http://localhost:8123/play
Run queries directly in the browser without needing a SQL client. Syntax highlighting, query history, result formatting. Handy for quick checks when you don’t want to fire up DataGrip or the CLI.
#Other endpoints
/binary- Visualizes the Clickhouse binary structure. More of a curiosity than a tool./replicas_status- Simple HTTP health check. Returns OK if replicas are healthy. Good for load balancer health checks.
#Why this matters
When you’re SSHed into a server at 2 AM debugging a production issue, having a built-in dashboard beats writing ad-hoc queries against system tables. Bookmark these.