DuckDB is an in-process
SQL OLAP database management system

Why DuckDB?

Simple

  • In-process, serverless
  • C++11, no dependencies, single file build
  • APIs for Python/R/Java/…
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Feature-rich

  • Transactions, persistence
  • Extensive SQL support
  • Direct Parquet & CSV querying
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Fast

  • Vectorized engine
  • Optimized for analytics
  • Parallel query processing
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Free

  • Free & Open Source
  • Permissive MIT License
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All the benefits of a database, none of the hassle.

Installation

Choose your environment to use for DuckDB

  • Python
  • R
  • Java
  • node.js
  • C++
  • CLI
pip install duckdb==0.3.1

Latest release: DuckDB 0.3.1 System detected: Other Installations

When to use DuckDB

  • Processing and storing tabular datasets, e.g. from CSV or Parquet files
  • Interactive data analysis, e.g. Joining & aggregate multiple large tables
  • Concurrent large changes, to multiple large tables, e.g. appending rows, adding/removing/updating columns
  • Large result set transfer to client

When to not use DuckDB

  • Non-rectangular data sets, e.g. graphs
  • High-volume transactional use cases (e.g. tracking orders in a webshop)
  • Large client/server installations for centralized enterprise data warehousing
  • Writing to a single database from multiple concurrent processes

Blog

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2021-11-26

DuckDB - The Lord of Enums:
The Fellowship of the Categorical and Factors.

String types are one of the most commonly used types. However, often string columns have a limited number of distinct values. For example, a country column will never have more than a few hundred unique entries. Storing a data type as a plain string causes a waste of storage and […]

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2021-11-12

Fast Moving Holistic Aggregates

TLDR: DuckDB, a free and Open-Source analytical data management system, has a windowing API that can compute complex moving aggregates like interquartile ranges and median absolute deviation much faster than the conventional approaches. In a previous post, we described the DuckDB windowing architecture and mentioned the support for some advanced […]

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2021-10-29

DuckDB-Wasm: Efficient Analytical SQL in the Browser

TLDR: DuckDB-Wasm is an in-process analytical SQL database for the browser. It is powered by WebAssembly, speaks Arrow fluently, reads Parquet, CSV and JSON files backed by Filesystem APIs or HTTP requests and has been tested with Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Node.js. You can try it in your browser at […]

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