About Duckle
Duckle is an open-source ETL and ELT platform for teams that want their data pipelines running on their own infrastructure. You build pipelines on a visual canvas, in Python or in SQL, then ship the same file to your own server or cloud account, where a headless runner executes it on a schedule.
Pipelines compile to SQL on DuckDB and use all the cores available, so a larger machine runs them faster. The platform lists support for a large catalog of components, dbt, change data capture, data quality checks, reverse ETL and lineage, along with a web console, roles, an audit trail and an MCP server so AI agents such as Claude or Cursor can work with it. Each pipeline is a single file that can live in git.
Duckle is written in Rust and licensed under Apache-2.0, and it runs headless in Docker or on a plain server, with Kubernetes among its topics. It states there is no vendor cloud and no per-row billing. It is an independent project by SlothFlowLabs and is not affiliated with DuckDB Labs or MotherDuck. It suits data engineers who want a self-hosted alternative to managed pipeline services.
Key features
- Visual canvas, Python, or SQL pipeline authoring
- Runs on DuckDB across all CPU cores
- dbt, CDC, and reverse ETL support
- Data quality checks and lineage
- Web console with roles and audit trail
- MCP server for AI agents
Good fit for
- →Self-hosted ETL without per-row billing
- →Scheduling data pipelines on your own servers
- →Letting AI agents inspect and run pipelines
- Tags
- etl
- elt
- duckdb
- data-pipelines
- dbt
- cdc
- data-quality
- mcp
- rust
- self-hosted
Duckle: questions and answers
- What is Duckle used for?
- Duckle is an open-source ETL and ELT platform built on DuckDB that you deploy yourself, with visual or SQL pipelines, dbt, CDC, data quality and an MCP server. It is a good fit for self-hosted ETL without per-row billing, scheduling data pipelines on your own servers, and letting AI agents inspect and run pipelines.
- Is Duckle open source?
- Yes. Duckle is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at slothflowlabs/duckle and is written mainly in Rust.
- Is Duckle free?
- Yes. Duckle is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
- Can I self-host Duckle?
- Yes. Duckle can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
- What is Duckle an alternative to?
- Duckle is an open-source alternative to SnapLogic, Alteryx, Fivetran and Informatica. Other open-source alternatives to Alteryx include Mage AI.
- Is Duckle actively maintained?
- Yes. The most recent commit to Duckle was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.7.4, published on 25 September 2026. The project has 1.3k stars on GitHub.
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