DuckDB WASM
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 7 embedded databases by recommenders
Lets people run SQL queries directly in the browser against local data such as Parquet files, without a backend server. Critics note the WebAssembly build lacks some features of the native version and the download is heavy.
Lets people run SQL queries directly in the browser against local data such as Parquet files, without a backend server. Critics note the WebAssembly build lacks some features of the native version and the download is heavy.
13 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 85%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Run SQL in the browser
“It's cool to be able to write SQL directly in a browser and not have to rely on REST/Graphql/etc to access the data layer.”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “A Preview of DuckDB v2.0” “I've built some fun stuff like that myself”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “Can we replace a $150k Looker with a bucket of HTML files?” Query Parquet files directly
“The choice to use DuckDB WASM for querying parquet files directly in the browser is clever”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: bikemap.nyc – visualization of the entire history of Citi Bike” “DuckDB-Wasm for querying the instance data”
Comment from 29 Nov 2025 in “WebR – R in the Browser” Handles millions of rows
“you can shove ~2-3 million rows to a browser based query engine in 16-20Mb with duckdb-wasm”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “DuckDB 2.0.0 LTS “Cinnamon Teal”” “it seems to work fine with ~160k rows”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Analyze JUnit test files in the browser”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Missing features versus native build
“we found out the hard way some specific features turned out not to be supported with WASM + parquet”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 on Hacker News “the WASM build doesn't have feature-parity with the "normal" variant”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 on Hacker News Heavy download size
“The wasm is pretty heavy data-wise tho”
Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Why DuckDB is my first choice for data processing”
Other embedded databases people recommend
The four most recommended other embedded databases, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 7 embedded databases, rankedWhat people said
11 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I've built some fun stuff like that myself”
“you can shove ~2-3 million rows to a browser based query engine in 16-20Mb with duckdb-wasm”
“It's cool to be able to write SQL directly in a browser and not have to rely on REST/Graphql/etc to access the data layer.”
“I appreciate that the Hannes still appreciates the magic of the WASM.”
“The wasm is pretty heavy data-wise tho”
“it seems to work fine with ~160k rows”
“The choice to use DuckDB WASM for querying parquet files directly in the browser is clever”
“DuckDB-Wasm for querying the instance data”
“I'm using the standard duckdb-wasm, along with JS functions to form the SQL queries, and not seeing onerous load times.”
“we found out the hard way some specific features turned out not to be supported with WASM + parquet”
“the WASM build doesn't have feature-parity with the "normal" variant”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.