vioscaleAI
Comparison

Delta Lake vs DuckDB

No clear leader: Delta Lake (61.0) and DuckDB (59.1) are within the 5-point margin; treat as a tie. The attribute-by-attribute breakdown below, with a source and date on every value, is the honest way to compare them.

Delta Lake full profile →DuckDB full profile →
Machine formatsMarkdownJSONGraphQLMarkdown is open. JSON and GraphQL need a free key.
Delta Lake61
DuckDB59
Score
vioscaleAI score
Delta Lake61 / 100medium · 58%
DuckDB59 / 100medium · 51%
Pricing
Free tier
Delta Lake✓
DuckDB✓
Model
Delta Lakeopen_source
DuckDBopen_source
Price level
Delta Lakefree
DuckDBfree
Transparent
Delta Lake–
DuckDB✓
Integrations
Count
Delta Lake15
DuckDB27
Security
Scorecard
Delta Lake6.2
DuckDB–
Vulnerabilities
Reliability
Status page
Delta Lake–
DuckDB✓
Adoption
Dependent repos
Delta Lake152
DuckDB1
Github stars
Delta Lake9,042
DuckDB42,154
Package downloads weekly
Delta Lake6,751,062
DuckDB15,285,415
Activity
Commits last 30d
Delta Lake100
DuckDB100
Release
Cadence days
Delta Lake50
DuckDB33
History
Delta Lake20 items
DuckDB20 items
License
Spdx
Delta LakeApache-2.0
DuckDBMIT
Language
Primary
Delta LakeScala
DuckDBC++
Market
Availability
Content
Faq
Delta Lake5 items
DuckDB7 items

Capabilities

Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for data warehouse software. “-” means undocumented, not absent.

Deployment
Deployment
Delta LakeSelf-hosted
DuckDBEmbedded
Architecture
Architecture
Delta LakeSeparated storage/compute
DuckDB-
Compute model
Delta Lake-
DuckDB-
Query
SQL dialect
Delta Lake-
DuckDBVendor-specific
Federation / lakehouse query-in-place
Delta Lake✓
DuckDB✓
Interoperability
Table-format support
Delta LakeDelta, Iceberg, Hudi
DuckDBParquet, CSV, JSON, Iceberg, Delta Lake, Vortex, DuckLake, Lance, Arrow, Avro, E
Scale
Concurrency scaling
Delta Lake-
DuckDB-
Ingestion
Streaming ingest
Delta Lake✓
DuckDB-
Data model
Semi-structured (JSON/VARIANT)
Delta LakeFirst-class
DuckDBFunctional
Analytics
ML / in-DB functions
Delta Lake-
DuckDB✓
Sharing
Data sharing / marketplace
Delta Lake✓
DuckDB-
Licensing
Licence class
Delta LakePermissive OSS
DuckDBPermissive OSS

What each one is

The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.

Delta Lake

A storage framework enabling lakehouse architectures—unified platforms combining data warehouse and data lake capabilities—that works with multiple query engines and can be deployed on any cloud, on-premises, or locally.

Independently observed

DuckDB

A portable analytical database that runs locally or embedded in applications, with PostgreSQL-like SQL and APIs for major programming languages, supporting popular data formats including CSV, JSON, Parquet, and Apache Iceberg.

Independently observed

Pricing

List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.

Delta Lake

Open sourceFree tier
as of verify ↗

DuckDB

Open sourceFree tier

Free, open source under MIT license

as of verify ↗

Platform & deployment

Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.

Platforms
macOS
Delta Lake–
DuckDB✓
Windows
Delta Lake–
DuckDB✓
Linux
Delta Lake–
DuckDB✓
CLI
Delta Lake–
DuckDB✓
Deployment
Self-hosted
Delta Lake✓
DuckDB✓

Integrations

What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.

In common (2)
  • Excel
  • Apache Iceberg

Delta Lake

35 total - 33 not shared
  • Apache Spark
  • Apache Flink
  • Apache Hive
  • Apache Pulsar
  • Apache Druid
  • ClickHouse
  • Trino
  • PrestoDB
  • StarRocks
  • RisingWave
  • Dagster
  • Hopsworks
  • MLflow
  • Kafka
  • AWS Athena
  • AWS EMR
  • AWS Glue
  • Azure Stream Analytics
  • Google BigQuery
  • Snowflake
  • Databricks
  • AWS Redshift
  • Microsoft Fabric
  • Power BI
  • +9 more
Independently observed

DuckDB

30 total - 28 not shared
  • Postgres
  • AWS
  • S3
  • Azure
  • Google Cloud
  • Hugging Face
  • SQLite
  • MySQL
  • Iceberg
  • Delta Lake
  • Parquet
  • JSON
  • Arrow
  • Avro
  • Pandas
  • dplyr
  • Jupyter
  • Marimo
  • Claude
  • Cloudflare
  • ODBC
  • HTTP
  • Vortex
  • DuckLake
  • +4 more
Independently observed
Still deciding?

Delta Lake or DuckDB: which one depends on you

A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.

Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works

Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.