Open-source MotherDuck alternatives

DuckDB is an analytical SQL database management system that runs in-process, meaning it is embedded in your application or notebook rather than running as a separate server. The goals are speed, reliability, portability and ease of use for analytical queries, and it is written in C++.

Its SQL dialect goes well beyond the basics: it handles arbitrary nested correlated subqueries, window functions, collations and complex types such as arrays, structs and maps, plus extensions that make SQL more convenient. CSV and Parquet files can be queried by naming them in a FROM clause. DuckDB is available as a standalone command line tool and has clients for Python, R, Java and WebAssembly, with deep integration into packages such as pandas and dplyr.

The project is MIT licensed. Building from source needs CMake, Python 3 and a C++17 compiler. Because it needs no server, DuckDB is popular with data analysts and engineers for exploring files and running local analytics, and it complements larger warehouses rather than replacing them.

GlareDB is a light and fast SQL database aimed at analytics. The project describes it as a lightweight, ergonomic database for quickly running analytics across a variety of sources, and it is written in Rust. It is meant for developers and analysts who want to query data with SQL without setting up a heavy data warehouse.

Installation is a single command from the project's site, and documentation, a blog and a changelog are available there. GlareDB uses calendar versioning in a year, month and patch format, so version 25.5.0 was the first release in May 2025. The code is licensed under MIT, and the company behind it is GlareDB, Inc. The README itself is brief, so see the documentation for supported data sources and query features.