DuckLake
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 3 table formats
People recommend it as a lakehouse layer with a SQL database catalog for ACID metadata transactions and speed. Critics say some features are still alpha and not fully production-ready.
People recommend it as a lakehouse layer with a SQL database catalog for ACID metadata transactions and speed. Critics say some features are still alpha and not fully production-ready.
45 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 36
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 36 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Faster than alternatives
“Queries were much, much faster than all alternatives.”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “DuckDB 1.5.2 – SQL database that runs on laptop, server, in the browser” “ducklake performs better than others”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “650GB of Data (Delta Lake on S3). Polars vs. DuckDB vs. Daft vs. Spark” “The numbers seem to crush iceberg.”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “DuckLake v1.0” - Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “DuckDB Ducklake”
ACID transactions for catalog metadata
“The difference is that DuckLake will use that database with all its ACID goodness for all metadata operations”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “650GB of Data (Delta Lake on S3). Polars vs. DuckDB vs. Daft vs. Spark” “Ducklake supports postgres for the catalog, so you get the postgres concurrency benefits”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “A Preview of DuckDB v2.0” “cross table transactions are not possible in iceberg/delta, but they are in ducklake”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “DuckLake v1.0” - Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “Data-at-Rest Encryption in DuckDB”
Lightweight stack; easy integration tests
“the whole stack is pretty lightweight and there’s support for inlining inserts in the catalog”
Comment from 14 Aug 2026 in “Single log line is 49KB+ (ext4) / 110KB+ (btrfs) of systemd-journald disk writes” “integration tests become really easy”
Comment from 29 Oct 2026 in “MiniLake Is a Local Databricks API Emulator with SQL, Delta Lake and Spark” Postgres as catalog works well
“We're using ducklake with data storage on Google cloud storage and the catalog inside a postgres database and it's a breeze!”
Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Why DuckDB is my first choice for data processing” “extending a postgres db to read the same data store via pglake (or duckdb + ducklake) is actually pretty slick”
Comment from 6 Aug 2026 in “What went wrong with data lakes? A 15-year reality check” “Ducklake supports postgres for the catalog, so you get the postgres concurrency benefits”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “A Preview of DuckDB v2.0”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Still alpha or not production-ready
“DuckLake's feature of flushing inlined data to parquet is still in alpha”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “650GB of Data (Delta Lake on S3). Polars vs. DuckDB vs. Daft vs. Spark” “But I'm not at the point where I'd flat out advise it to other people”
Comment from 27 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: How do you handle time-series metrics at scale without a large bill?” “it is not quite in a stable production state”
Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Why DuckDB is my first choice for data processing” - Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “DuckDB Ducklake”
Needs a dedicated SQL metadata database
“they store the snapshot metadata in a relation database. I have a use case where we do 100k changes a second.”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “Postgres data stored in Parquet on S3: LTAP architecture explained” “that required us to move away from PG-first approach”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Streambed – Stream Postgres to Iceberg on S3, Supports Postgres Wire” “it requires SQL database to represent its catalog”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “650GB of Data (Delta Lake on S3). Polars vs. DuckDB vs. Daft vs. Spark” - Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Streambed – Stream Postgres to Iceberg on S3, Supports Postgres Wire”
Needs a fork or extra dependency
“I love it, but you need a fork for now.”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “DuckDB Ducklake” “Much faster, but adds a dependency”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “DuckDB Ducklake”
Other table formats people recommend
The two most recommended other table formats, 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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DuckLakeThis page | 36 | 9 | 80% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Apache Iceberg | 26 | 6 | 81% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Delta Lake | 5 | 3 | 63% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 54 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the Duck ecosystem is far more compelling for my modest needs”
“integration tests become really easy”
“But I'm not at the point where I'd flat out advise it to other people”
“I think this is an elegant design that's superior to the competition”
“Much faster, but adds a dependency”
“I love it, but you need a fork for now.”
“When it works well it's really nice. And it beats handrolling a multi level parquet store.”
“It's alright, it's pretty alpha software.”
“it's just a (good) data lake spec that works in duckdb”
“we've adopted/extended it and ducklake very heavily at Krea for our research”
“We have bet early on DuckDB and Ducklake for Windmill and couldn't be happier.”
“Ducklake supports postgres for the catalog, so you get the postgres concurrency benefits”
“the whole stack is pretty lightweight and there’s support for inlining inserts in the catalog”
“extending a postgres db to read the same data store via pglake (or duckdb + ducklake) is actually pretty slick”
“they store the snapshot metadata in a relation database. I have a use case where we do 100k changes a second.”
“lets build a lake house over S3, but for the bit that needs strong consistency”
“Ducklake needs a dedicated metadata database”
“that required us to move away from PG-first approach”
“think duckdb/ducklake/quack could potentially be a future replacement”
“This makes Ducklake much more interesting for my use case, excited where this is going.”
“With ducklake this scales well to multi-terabyte data sets”
“I'm using it (ducklake specifically) to build a lakehouse RPC server that can scale horizontally”
“I feel like this is what delta lake and ducklake are largely solving for. And then some.”
“Queries were much, much faster than all alternatives.”
“it worked flawlessly. It's only improved since. Highly recommend.”
“cross table transactions are not possible in iceberg/delta, but they are in ducklake”
“DuckLake is great for the lakehouse layer and it's what we use in production.”
“To have concurrent read-write access to a database, you can use our DuckLake lakehouse format”
“The numbers seem to crush iceberg.”
“While this isn't as good of a spec for database-metadata as something like ducklake would be”
“We're using ducklake with data storage on Google cloud storage and the catalog inside a postgres database and it's a breeze!”
“it is not quite in a stable production state”
“I've been really happy with DuckLake, happy to answer any questions about it.”
“restarts are no problem on ducklake (ACID transactions in catalog)”
“I'd take a good look at ducklake as a better multiplayer option”
“DuckLake's feature of flushing inlined data to parquet is still in alpha”
“The difference is that DuckLake will use that database with all its ACID goodness for all metadata operations”
“ducklake performs better than others”
“it requires SQL database to represent its catalog”
“DuckLake is pretty cool, and we obviously love everything the DuckDB is doing.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.