- If you translate it literally, it sounds something like “ClickHouse doesn’t press the brake pedal”.
- Shorter, but less precise translations might be “ClickHouse isn’t slow”, “ClickHouse doesn’t lag” or just “ClickHouse is fast”.
What does “не тормозит” mean?
This page explains what “Не тормозит” means
We often get this question when people see vintage (limited production) ClickHouse t-shirts. They have the words “ClickHouse не тормозит” written in big bold text on the front.
Before ClickHouse became open-source, it was developed as an in-house storage system by a large European IT company, Yandex. That’s why it initially got its slogan in Cyrillic, which is “не тормозит” (pronounced as “ne tormozit”). After the open-source release, we first produced some of those t-shirts for local events, and it was a no-brainer to use the slogan as-is.
A second batch of these t-shirts was supposed to be given away at international events, and we tried to make an English version of the slogan.
Unfortunately, we just couldn’t come up with a punchy equivalent in English. The original phrase is elegant in its expression while being succinct, and restrictions on space on the t-shirt meant that we failed to come up with a good enough translation as most options appeared to be either too long or inaccurate.
We decided to keep the slogan even on t-shirts produced for international events. It appeared to be a great decision because people all over the world were positively surprised and curious when they saw it.
So, what does it mean? Here are some ways to translate “не тормозит”:
P.S. These t-shirts aren’t for sale, they were given away for free at some ClickHouse Meetups, usually as a gift for best questions or other forms of active participation. Now, these t-shirts are no longer produced, and they have become highly valued collector’s items.