The most universal and functional table engines for high-load tasks. The property shared by these engines is quick data insertion with subsequent background data processing. `MergeTree` family engines support data replication (with [Replicated*](mergetree-family/replication.md#table_engines-replication) versions of engines), partitioning, and other features not supported in other engines.
Lightweight [engines](log-family/index.md) with minimum functionality. They’re the most effective when you need to quickly write many small tables (up to approximately 1 million rows) and read them later as a whole.
Virtual column is an integral table engine attribute that is defined in the engine source code.
You shouldn’t specify virtual columns in the `CREATE TABLE` query and you can’t see them in `SHOW CREATE TABLE` and `DESCRIBE TABLE` query results. Virtual columns are also read-only, so you can’t insert data into virtual columns.
To select data from a virtual column, you must specify its name in the `SELECT` query. `SELECT *` doesn’t return values from virtual columns.
If you create a table with a column that has the same name as one of the table virtual columns, the virtual column becomes inaccessible. We don’t recommend doing this. To help avoid conflicts, virtual column names are usually prefixed with an underscore.
