Building DuckDB from Source

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Documentation / Development / Building DuckDB

When Should You Build DuckDB?

DuckDB binaries are available for stable and preview builds on the installation page. In most cases, it's recommended to use these binaries. When you are running on an experimental platform (e.g., Raspberry Pi) or you would like to build the project for an unmerged pull request, you can build DuckDB from source based on the duckdb/duckdb repository hosted on GitHub. This page explains the steps for building DuckDB.

Prerequisites

DuckDB needs CMake and a C++11-compliant compiler (e.g., GCC, Apple-Clang, MSVC). Additionally, we recommend using the Ninja build system, which automatically parallelizes the build process.

Getting Started

A Makefile wraps the build process. See Build Configuration for targets and configuration flags.

make
make release # same as plain make
make debug
GEN=ninja make # for use with Ninja
BUILD_BENCHMARK=1 make # Build with benchmarks

Platforms

Platforms with Full Support

DuckDB fully supports Linux, macOS and Windows. Both x86_64 (amd64) and AArch64 (arm64) builds are available for these platforms, and almost all extensions are distributed for these platforms.

Platform name	Description
`linux_amd64`	Linux x86_64 (amd64) with glibc
`linux_arm64`	Linux AArch64 (arm64) with glibc
`osx_amd64`	macOS 12+ amd64 (Intel CPUs)
`osx_arm64`	macOS 12+ arm64 (Apple Silicon CPUs)
`windows_amd64`	Windows 10+ x86_64 (amd64)
`windows_arm64`	Windows 10+ AArch64 (arm64)

For these platforms, builds are available for both the latest stable version and the preview version (nightly build). In some circumstances, you may still want to build DuckDB from source, e.g., to test an unmerged pull request. For build instructions on these platforms, see:

Platforms with Partial Support

There are several partially supported platforms. For some platforms, DuckDB binaries and extensions (or a subset of extensions) are distributed. For others, building from source is possible.

Platform name	Description
`linux_amd64_musl`	Linux x86_64 (amd64) with musl libc, e.g., Alpine Linux
`linux_arm64_musl`	Linux AArch64 (arm64) with musl libc, e.g., Alpine Linux
`linux_arm64_android`	Android AArch64 (arm64)
`wasm_eh`	WebAssembly Exception Handling

Below, we provide detailed build instructions for some platforms:

Platforms with Best Effort Support

Platform name	Description
`freebsd_amd64`	FreeBSD x86_64 (amd64)
`freebsd_arm64`	FreeBSD AArch64 (arm64)
`wasm_mvp`	WebAssembly Minimum Viable Product
`windows_amd64_mingw`	Windows 10+ x86_64 (amd64) with MinGW
`windows_arm64_mingw`	Windows 10+ AArch64 (arm64) with MinGW

These platforms are not covered by DuckDB's community support. For details on commercial support, see the support policy page.

See also the “Unofficial and Unsupported Platforms” page for details.

Outdated Platforms

Some platforms were supported in older DuckDB versions but are no longer supported.

Platform name	Description
`linux_amd64_gcc4`	Linux AMDM64 (x86_64) with GCC 4, e.g., CentOS 7
`linux_arm64_gcc4`	Linux AArch64 (arm64) with GCC 4, e.g., CentOS 7
`windows_amd64_rtools`	Windows 10+ x86_64 (amd64) for RTools

DuckDB can also be built for end-of-life platforms such as macOS 11 and CentOS 7/8 using the instructions provided for macOS and Linux.

Amalgamation Build

DuckDB can be build as a single pair of C++ header and source code files (duckdb.hpp and duckdb.cpp) with approximately 0.5M lines of code. To generate this file, run:

python scripts/amalgamation.py

Note that amalgamation build is provided on a best-effort basis and is not officially supported.

Limitations

Currently, DuckDB has the following limitations:

The DuckDB codebase is not compatible with C++23. Therefore, trying to compile DuckDB with -std=c++23 will fail.
The -march=native build flag, i.e., compiling DuckDB with the local machine's native instructions set, is not supported.

Troubleshooting Guides

We provide troubleshooting guides for building DuckDB: