# Apache Arrow

20 Hacker News commenters recommended Apache Arrow and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as a shared, language-independent memory layout that lets tools pass data without copying; the most common caveat is that it has many bugs.

## Why people recommend it

- Shared memory layout across languages (5 comments): "Protocols and IR (Intermediate Representation) have layed and continue to enable interoperability and composability of data tools (see Apache Arrow, Substrait, Catalog)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47460257)) "It's a standard memory layout available across applications and even across languages, which can be really convenient." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46993590)) "A standardized layout like Arrow means that the data is not tied to the layout/padding of a particular language" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46733465))
- Passes data between tools without copying (2 comments): "The USP of Arrow ist that you can pass bits of memory between Polars, Datafusion, DuckDB, etc. without copying." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46990187)) "Apache arrow is great here, basically the reason we wrote the initial js tier is for easier shuttling" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46715604))
- Fast serialization and performance (3 comments): "excellent performance for the actual serialization and deserialization part" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289906)) "It worked flawlessly and 10-20x'd my throughput" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46992954)) "The performance is so good." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46991777))
- Usable C interface for bindings (2 comments): "Arrow CPP for example has very portable builds and the C interface is very usable for building bindings." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596063)) "DataFusion and Arrow are AI-native, allowing for Python-Rust interoperability and speed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49967794))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Vortex file format](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vortex.md): 13 recommend
- [Feather file format](https://hackerapproved.com/p/feather.md): 10 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Apache Arrow", https://hackerapproved.com/p/apache-arrow/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).