Pedro Holanda - DuckDB: Bringing analytical SQL directly to your Python shell

Discover DuckDB, a lightweight in-memory relational database bringing analytical SQL to Python, with fast query performance, scalability, and Python DBI API compliance, ideal for scientific computing and data science applications.

Key takeaways
  • DuckDB is a lightweight, in-memory relational database that brings analytical SQL directly to Python
  • It’s designed for analytical workloads and is optimized for fast query performance and scalability
  • DuckDB stores data in columnar format, allowing for efficient compression and query processing
  • It supports various compression techniques, including run-length encoding (RLE), bit-packing, and dictionary compression
  • DuckDB has a Python DBI API compliance, making it easy to integrate with existing Python applications
  • It supports user-defined functions (UDFs) and has a plugin architecture for extending its functionality
  • DuckDB is pre-release, with the main contributor being the Research Centre for Mathematics and Informatics from Amsterdam
  • It has seen over 32,000 downloads in its early stages, with growing demand and increasing popularity
  • DuckDB has been used in various projects, including scientific computing and data science applications