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About ProbeDeck

Who built this

ProbeDeck is built by Vladimir Chemeris, an indie iOS developer with a background in backend infrastructure and DevOps tooling. ProbeDeck is a solo project: one developer, one app, one use case.

ProbeDeck started during on-call rotations. When an alert fired at 2 a.m., the only way to check a ClickHouse cluster from a phone was to open a terminal emulator, SSH into a bastion, and start typing SELECT … FROM system.processes by hand: a slow, error-prone workflow under pressure. A native iPhone app that handled the SSH tunnel, graded cluster health at a glance, and let you kill a runaway query with a safe confirmation didn't exist, so it got built.

What ProbeDeck is

ProbeDeck is a native iOS app for monitoring ClickHouse and running on call. It connects over HTTPS/TLS or an SSH tunnel, with credentials stored in the iOS Keychain and private keys protected by the Secure Enclave. It requires no cloud account, no backend, and no external client. It reads the system tables (processes, replicas, parts, mutations, merges, metrics) and turns them into health tiles you can read half-awake.

ProbeDeck focuses on one platform (iPhone) and one job (on-call ClickHouse monitoring and operations). It is deliberately not a full desktop SQL IDE. Read SQL and a bounded data browser are there, but heavy schema work belongs on a laptop. There is no desktop version and no Android app.

Engineering principles

  • Privacy by default. ProbeDeck has no backend and no account system. Your ClickHouse credentials, private keys, and hostnames never leave your device, and the app connects straight to the server or bastion you configure. Nothing is proxied through the developer. Optional anonymous diagnostics pass an allow-list scrubber, and the first-launch privacy screen and Settings both hold the off switches.
  • Native iOS, not a web wrapper. Every interaction in ProbeDeck is implemented using native iOS APIs and SwiftUI. There is no embedded web view and no cross-platform framework.
  • Safety for production. Monitoring and read SQL change nothing. The moment an action does (killing a query, a write, DDL, OPTIMIZE FINAL) it requires a type-to-confirm step and shows what it touches. ProbeDeck never promises an Undo it cannot deliver: KILL MUTATION does not roll back applied changes.
  • Honest freemium. Monitoring and read SQL are free, forever, so you can prove on your own production that nothing leaves the device before you pay. A single one-time Pro unlock ($19.99) adds the operations: kill, writes, the AI assistant, and more than one saved connection. No subscription, no trial wall, no nag pop-ups.

Contact

Questions, bug reports, and feature requests are welcome atsupport@probedeck.app. Vladimir responds within 24 hours on business days.

For press inquiries or partnership questions, use the same address.

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ClickHouse is a registered trademark of ClickHouse, Inc. ProbeDeck is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by ClickHouse, Inc.