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Comments (296)

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  hobofan
  I'm glad that DuckDB has a foundation in place and hope it is resilient enough to push the DB forward when the time comes.Out of all the big orgs, Amazon is probably the one that has the least regard for keeping technically interesting projects alive, and the certainly will bulldoze it for some dumb reason when the next re-org comes.
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  daviewales
  The title is misleading. AWS acquired DuckLabs, NOT DuckDB. The DuckDB source code is still owned by the nonprofit DuckDB Foundation.Quote from the article:"As the CWI representative on the DuckDB Foundation... When DuckLabs spun out of CWI, we created this foundation, which holds all IP of open-source DuckDB, and will continue to do so." - Peter Boncz
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  cmiles8
  Congrats to the founders but honestly feel bad for the team. Hearing so many not good things coming from inside AWS these days. Place sounds like a total mess. Seems like a constant stream of top talent fleeing on my LinkedIn this past year.I hope they just let the team carry on and don’t contaminate it with all the other craziness going on.
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  tormeh
  Seems like a good time to recommend Apache Datafusion. It's designed to be a library, but works pretty well standalone as well. There's a CLI version, but also Python and Java bindings, as well as a Rust library, of course.From my own experience I can say it integrates far better into your Rust app than DuckDB does.Well over 100 monthly contributors, too.
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  pepperoni_pizza
  Congrats to the founders on their new generational wealth, but also what a shame.
• willbeddow
  This is a real shame. I love DuckDB, and we've adopted/extended it and ducklake very heavily at Krea for our research.I know the projects will remain open, and ostensibly still contributed to in the same direction, but surely AWS thinks of this as another piece of a product suite to compete with Databricks.Nontheless, I think the open embedded query engine approach DuckDB is spearheading is larger than one project, and I remain excited about the broader ecosystem (especially datafusion).
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  0898
  I'm an idiot, and a lot of Hacker News goes over my head, but I still read it. Would anyone mind answering this question?Are databases not a solved problem? Why are there lots of different databases? Why is one faster than the other? What's different between them?
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  adsharma
  Surprised that there isn't more discussion of DuckDB source distributions.Why do we need a source distribution for a well regarded MIT licensed project? Because it's not easy to contribute code to DuckDB if you don't work at DuckLabs. The CI used to take 5 hours for a simple bug fix last I looked (may have improved since I flagged it on social media).There are two that I'm aware of: * Haybarn: https://rusty.today/blog/duckdb-extension-distribution-gap/ * Pygmy-Goose: https://github.com/Pygmy-Goose/pygmy-goose Pygmy-Goose is focused on making agentic workflows faster by splitting the repo, making git worktrees cheap and 5 minute cached CI on 3 major platforms.
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  janpeuker
  I was a real fan from the very beginning, but now DuckDB 2.0 "as a server" and 5. asynchronous I/O [1] looks aimed at something very different from what I thought first.1) https://duckdb.org/2026/08/17/duckdb-20-highlights
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  datadrivenangel
  Title is "DuckLabs to Join AWS, Projects to Remain Open Source"
• adeptima
  If you are into geo spatial, worth to check on the same class project - SedonaDB https://github.com/apache/sedona-db"SedonaDB is an open-source single-node analytical database engine with geospatial as a first-class citizen"Apache License 2.0 https://github.com/apache/sedona-db/blob/main/LICENSEMIT License https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/blob/main/LICENSEhttps://duckdb.org/docs/current/core_extensions/spatial/func...
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  fidotron
  Maybe they learned AWS were planning on releasing a managed clone without their involvement?
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  puszczyk
  What's the relationship between MotherDuck (https://motherduck.com) and DuckLabs?
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  log101
  1 month later: "Re-writing DuckDB in Rust with Claude Ultra". There is a curios phenomenon, big tech uses great open source projects as a guinea pig for experimenting agent-based development approaches, see Bun, AstroJS.
• ferguess_k
  Wow congratulations for the original authors, but I hope it doesn't impact the users. I can imagine that it is very useful for AWS because they don't exactly have something similar.I use DuckDB extensively for local dev as well as a parquet viewer.
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  jakozaur
  AWS rarely acquired startups, though leveraging someone else's tech is a typical pattern. It did license ParAccel and sold it as Redshift. It also runs Athena, which is based on Trino (a Presto fork).Now, with Snowflake and Databricks earning big bucks in the intelligence era, time to gain market share by having DuckLabs under its ownership?
• jefecoon
  Any indication yet as to whether Quack, DuckLake, real-time materialized views dev will continue full-steam ahead? B/c myself and i know of many others very interested in seeing these efforts completed... :crossed-fingers:
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  karakanb
  I wasn't expecting this, and I am pleasantly surprised. I think AWS has been a bad player in the data space and very much behind all the other warehouse providers for many years now. This could lead into interesting integrations of DuckDB on top of all the data that lives in S3 and provide a leaner, faster and a more modern alternative to Athena.
• otterley
  More details on the acquisition here: https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2026/08/duckdb-and-the-...DuckLabs will be an AWS subsidiary, not subsumed into AWS itself.
• kimseungyong
  Who is better? AWS? Google? MS?
• wqtz
  I made a prediction that motherduck will be acquired by GCP. But I could not imagine duckdb labs will be acquired by AWS. I do not think of AWS as a serious contender in the data space. So, we have now Pola.rs and motherduck in the market. Who will acquire them? I believe Microsoft has brought in a fair few industry talent to build their Azure Fabric product. Then you also have AI companies that are buying devtool/utility companies left and right.
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  m1keil
  Waiting for QuackDB the OSS spin off any second now
• schmuhblaster
  I've been super impressed by DuckDB ever since first trying it out about 3 three years ago. Congrats to the founders!
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  georgewfraser
  AWS is a great home for DuckLabs. They just want people to use more compute and storage, so they have a degree of technology-neutrality. This is the key to allowing DuckDB to continue to grow in whatever directions are natural, rather than being warped by some kind of walled garden data platform strategy.
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  flakiness
  https://duckdb.org/roadmapCurrent Google cache of this page states:> "The DuckDB project is governed by the non-profit DuckDB Foundation . The Foundation and DuckLabs are not funded by external investors (e.g., venture capital)."But "(Last updated: Aug 2026)" and I was not able to find this text anymore.I wonder if they took vc money after all. I guess not, but still, it seem like to be difficult to live as an independent open source company. Getting a big co as a parent/sponsor is probably the next best thing.
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  yipinwong
  Congrats to the DuckDB team.I've been eyeballing DuckDB and LanceDB as part of AI agent memories. This gives me a vibe that AWS will use DuckDB somehow in their ai agents sometime in the near future after seeing the potential.
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  newtwentysix
  super curious what exactly does it mean to acquire an open source product.
• sakesun
  AWS name is really negative.I trust the person leading DuckDB, nevertheless.
• akshay_akula
  Yeah the foundation is doing the heavy lifting here. Amazon's track record with technically interesting projects after a reorg is not great.
• angulardragon03
  Back in 2018, I took Hannes’ database course as part of my CS degree, which was one of the better ones I took. Over the years, I’ve seen DuckDB celebrated here (and other places), and now this. Congrats to both him and the Ducklabs team.
• nightski
  Remember when big co used to just donate to open source projects to help them out instead of acquiring/dominating them?
• g8oz
  I fear this is the end of the rapid pace of innovation that we've seen from DuckDb."AWS has committed to supporting the continued development of DuckDB and its wider community for the long term."Those are just words man.
• dkga
  I am a big fan of the Duck team since before their v1.0 and I am happy for them personally for the big payoff, both in monetary terms but also in terms of scale and longer-term viability of their baby. I am also happy to see the arrangement will keep the core OSS. Let's see what the future holds now!
• hckshr
  DuckLabs does services and support around DuckDB."We also worried that scaling DuckLabs into a much larger sales, support, and operations organization would pull our attention away from the technical work and open-source community that made DuckDB successful in the first place."Given AWS's services arm seems like a good play for a team. Congrats!
• srameshc
  I am happy for the team's success but I am sad and anxious for what may become of the DuckDB. It is my favorite tool. Like other comments mentioned, DuckDB is open source and MIT license so I hope it will survive and evolve further the way it did.
• Bluestein
  Extend, embrace, quack.-
• ganeshsivakumar
  What if AWS eventually steer away duckdb team's bandwidth towards their AWS products or influence their work, since they are technically AWS employees.
• saxomoose
  What does the financial counterpart of such a deal look like if the IP (main asset) is not part of the deal?Purely acqui-hiring?
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  Fervicus
  People using DuckDB, what's your use case? I use sqlite for a lot of my personal projects. What's a good use case for using DuckDB?
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  tosh
  did not expect thatI hope the future for DuckDB is still bright
• pantsforbirds
  I'm hoping this means we get an rds + s3 implementation of ducklake from AWS: https://ducklake.select/
• o_m
  What is the go to alternative from DuckDB?
• meerita
  I am glad for them. Does anyone know the amount of the operation?
• dzonga
  AWS acquiring DuckLabs is massive. nice move.one feature I can't wait from the DuckDb team are real-time materialized views.
• nicornk
  I hope AWS doesn’t dilute the DuckDB brand by calling their managed DuckDB offering SageMaker<something>…
• petrev01
  This is easily one of the most disappointing pieces of tech news I've read in a long time. RIP indie duck-things.
• bijowo1676
  Great move for AWS, does it mean AWS wants to build competitor to clickhouse ?
• steveshreeve
  Shameless plug for DuckDB Harbor - DuckDB server over HTTP (UDS or TCP/IP). Includes a new harbor based DuckDB CLI called pilot:https://github.com/shreeve/duckdb-harbor
• dtnm
  Goobye DuckDB.
• pkilgore
  Avoid antitrust scrutiny with this one weird trick.
• jmartrican
  How do you suppose AWS can monetize it?
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  thataccount
  Goodbye DuckDB and hello surprise enterprise DuckDB that has special features that you can't live without that only work with Enterprise DuckDB.
• baba_vanga
  Prediction: this is start of an aquisition spree by AWS.
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  h2aichat
  AWS is always hungry. Watch out PostgreSQL
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  Boxxed
  Can we stop consolidating everything under a handful of massive companies?
• otabdeveloper4
  Wow, that sucks balls.
• jknoepfler
  I guess this will be a good test of the open source model DuckDB has opted into.As I understand it, DuckDB is MIT-licensed and governance is provided by a separate, non-profit DuckDB foundation. This was done explicitly to prevent BSL-ification.I'm very curious to see whether that approach holds the line. I wouldn't bet on it, but one can hope?
• shevy-java
  That's horrible news.
• gigatexal
  This will be the engine for redshift now. They’ll make it read write and it’ll be magic.
• lvl155
  Man. DuckDB is one of my favorite tools in the past decade. It basically replaced pandas/Polars for me and I hope aws leaves it alone.Otoh, I am glad those guys got paid.
• leoh
  Please edit the title it’s wrong
• pid-1
  Congrats!
• mohitpaddhariya
  Insane!!!!
• anon
  undefined
• nprateem
  I see a site like https://ducklabs.com/ and it's clear I'm waaaay over thinking my website.
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  igtztorrero
  Please No No No why.....
• theappsecguy
  This is awful news.
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  simlevesque
  I said "Oh shit !" out loud in a meeting.
• apercu
  On one hand I am glad that (hopefully) some people were rewarded for their hard work.On the other hand, do we have to live in an oligarchy?
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  add-sub-mul-div
  We just can't have nice things, can we?
• arthurcolle
  such a disappointing outcome
• kevinbaiv
  [flagged]
• Ruca_AI
  [dead]
• aleda145
  [dead]
• biosstyle
  [flagged]
• alexwennerberg
  I'm glad I stuck with SQLite. Governance is an important part of any open source project. SQLite has kept things narrow and focused, while DuckDB's philosophy is to do more and more, making it a general-purpose data science tool. I am old-fashioned in that I believe in the philosophy that software should "do one thing and do it well"