# Apache Iceberg vs Google BigQuery

| Attribute | Apache Iceberg | Google BigQuery |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 59.5 (56% (medium)) | 61.1 (40% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 100 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 1 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 9,326 | - |
| adoption.package_downloads_weekly | 6,665,583 | - |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Apache Iceberg is a table format that enables reliable, ACID-compliant SQL operations on big data. It allows multiple query engines—such as Spark, Trino, Flink, Hive, and Impala—to safely read and write the same tables concurrently, bringing traditional database semantics to analytics workloads. It is indexed under Data Warehouse Software.","source":"https://iceberg.apache.org","question":"What is Apache Iceberg?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Apache Iceberg is open source, so it can be self-hosted and used at no licence cost. It is released under the Apache-2.0 licence. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://iceberg.apache.org","question":"Is Apache Iceberg free to use?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Apache Iceberg can be deployed self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://iceberg.apache.org","question":"Can Apache Iceberg be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 20 integrations for Apache Iceberg, including Spark, Trino, Presto, Flink, Hive, Impala, PyArrow and DuckDB, plus 12 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://iceberg.apache.org","question":"What does Apache Iceberg integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Apache Iceberg is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg","question":"Is Apache Iceberg open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"A fully managed, serverless cloud analytics engine that combines data storage, real-time processing, and integrated machine learning capabilities in a unified platform. It is indexed under Data Warehouse Software.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/bigquery","question":"What is Google BigQuery?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Google BigQuery offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/dotnet/docs/reference/Google.Cloud.Channel.V1/1.7.0/Google.Cloud.Channel.V1.ListChannelPartnerRepricingConfigsResponse","question":"Is Google BigQuery free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed browser-based access to Google BigQuery. That is the extent of what we could verify from public sources, so it may well offer desktop or mobile clients we have not indexed.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/dotnet/docs/reference/Google.Cloud.Channel.V1/1.7.0/Google.Cloud.Channel.V1.ListChannelPartnerRepricingConfigsResponse","question":"What platforms does Google BigQuery support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for Google BigQuery, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/bigquery","question":"Can Google BigQuery be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 5 integrations for Google BigQuery, including Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, Data Engineering Agent, Data Science Agent, Conversational Analytics Agent and Dataflow. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://cloud.google.com/bigquery","question":"What does Google BigQuery integrate with?","confidence":0.6}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | A table format that brings SQL capabilities to large-scale analytical datasets and enables multiple computing engines to safely and concurrently query and modify the same tables. | A cloud-based data platform that automates the complete data lifecycle from ingestion through AI analysis, enabling organizations to analyze data and derive AI-driven insights at scale. |
| features.capabilities | `{"deployment":"embedded","data_sharing":true,"license_class":"permissive","table_formats":"Iceberg (Parquet, ORC, Avro, Puffin data files)","semi_structured":"first_class","federation_query":true,"streaming_ingest":true,"concurrency_scaling":"automatic"}` | `{"in_db_ml":true,"deployment":"managed","sql_dialect":"vendor","architecture":"serverless","data_sharing":true,"compute_model":"serverless","license_class":"proprietary","semi_structured":"first_class","federation_query":true,"streaming_ingest":true}` |
| integrations.count | 20 | 2 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Spark"},{"name":"Trino"},{"name":"Presto"},{"name":"Flink"},{"name":"Hive"},{"name":"Impala"},{"name":"PyArrow"},{"name":"DuckDB"},{"name":"Polars"},{"name":"Pandas"},{"name":"Ray"},{"name":"Datafusion"},{"name":"BigQuery"},{"name":"SQLAlchemy"},{"name":"S3"},{"name":"GCS"},{"name":"Azure Data Lake Storage"},{"name":"Hadoop"},{"name":"Kerberos"},{"name":"Thrift"},{"name":"Avro"},{"name":"Parquet"},{"name":"ORC"}]` | `[{"name":"Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform"},{"name":"Data Engineering Agent"},{"name":"Data Science Agent"},{"name":"Conversational Analytics Agent"},{"name":"Gemini","native":true},{"name":"Dataflow","native":true}]` |
| language.primary | Java | - |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"linux":true,"windows":true}` | `{"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Open source, no licensing cost","sourceUrl":"https://iceberg.apache.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T08:32:59.428Z"}` | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free tier","summary":"10 GiB storage + 1 TiB queries/month","description":"Monthly free allocation","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"queries":"1 TiB/month","storage":"10 GiB"}}],"summary":"Free tier with 10 GiB storage and 1 TiB monthly queries. New customers receive $300 in free credits.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://cloud.google.com/dotnet/docs/reference/Google.Cloud.Channel.V1/1.7.0/Google.Cloud.Channel.V1.ListChannelPartnerRepricingConfigsResponse","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T15:28:19.613Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | - | yes |
| pricing.model | open_source | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | free | unknown |
| pricing.transparent | - | no |
| release.cadence_days | 50 | - |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.12.0","date":"2026-09-30T01:52:18Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.12.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.11.0","date":"2026-05-20T08:47:57Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.11.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.10.2","date":"2026-05-18T21:58:12Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.10.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.10.1","date":"2025-12-22T22:04:42Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.10.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.10.0","date":"2025-09-11T15:08:46Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.10.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.2","date":"2025-07-18T13:44:58Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.9.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.1","date":"2025-05-28T16:52:05Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.9.0","date":"2025-04-28T06:27:16Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.7.2","date":"2025-03-19T10:12:37Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.7.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.8.1","date":"2025-02-28T07:52:17Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.8.0","date":"2025-02-13T09:13:46Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.7.1","date":"2024-12-06T20:01:03Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.7.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.7.0","date":"2024-11-08T15:12:01Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.7.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.6.1","date":"2024-08-27T17:47:30Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.6.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.6.0","date":"2024-07-23T12:06:44Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.6.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.5.2","date":"2024-05-16T07:50:32Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.5.1","date":"2024-04-30T12:43:30Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.5.0","date":"2024-03-11T11:00:15Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.4.3","date":"2023-12-27T17:15:46Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.4.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/apache/iceberg/releases/tag/apache-iceberg-1.4.2","date":"2023-11-07T16:44:26Z","type":"stable","version":"apache-iceberg-1.4.2"}]` | - |
| reliability.sla_pct | - | 99.99 |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | 7.9 | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=apache-iceberg&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (Data Warehouse Software)

| Capability | Apache Iceberg | Google BigQuery |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Deployment | Embedded | Managed cloud |
| **Architecture** |  |  |
| Architecture | - | Serverless |
| Compute model | - | Serverless |
| **Query** |  |  |
| SQL dialect | - | Vendor-specific |
| Federation / lakehouse query-in-place | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Interoperability** |  |  |
| Table-format support | Iceberg (Parquet, ORC, Avro, Puffin data files) | - |
| **Scale** |  |  |
| Concurrency scaling | Automatic | - |
| **Ingestion** |  |  |
| Streaming ingest | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Data model** |  |  |
| Semi-structured (JSON/VARIANT) | First-class | First-class |
| **Analytics** |  |  |
| ML / in-DB functions | - | ✓ |
| **Sharing** |  |  |
| Data sharing / marketplace | ✓ | ✓ |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Licence class | Permissive OSS | Proprietary |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T19:22:09.505Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*