head to head · open source
duckdb vs dbt
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars, 4,176 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. dbt has 14,112 stars, 2,658 forks, 1,534 open issues and last shipped yesterday. duckdb leads on adoption by 203% (42,747 vs 14,112 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; dbt is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. duckdb has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, dbt 19%. duckdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (analytics), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| duckdb | dbt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick duckdb if
- You weight community size — 43K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dbt if
- You want the dbt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and dbt fits your workflow better
About duckdb
DuckDB DuckDB is a high performance analytical database system. It is designed to be fast, reliable, portable, and easy to use. DuckDB provides a rich SQL dialect with support far beyond basic SQL. DuckDB supports arbitrary and nested correlated subqueries, window functions, collations, complex types (arrays, structs, maps), and several extensions designed to make SQL easier to use. DuckDB is available as a standalone CLI application and has clients for Python, R, Java, Wasm, etc., with deep integrations with packages such as pandas and dplyr. For more information on using DuckDB, please refer to the DuckDB…
read the full duckdb overview →
About dbt
[!WARNING] dbt v1 development has moved to the 1.latest branch. The main branch now contains all the Apache 2.0 source code of dbt v2.0 — a ground up rewrite of dbt in Rust. If you're looking for the v1 Python implementation of the dbt framework, switch to 1.latest . dbt enables data analysts and engineers to transform their data using the same practices that software engineers use to build applications. About dbt v2.0 🚧 dbt v2.0 is in beta. Behavior, APIs, and on disk formats may change before the stable release. dbt v2.0 is engineered for performance at scale. It parses, compiles, and runs projects in a…
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or dbt more popular?
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars and dbt has 14,112. duckdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are duckdb and dbt free?
Both are open source. duckdb is licensed under MIT and dbt under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between duckdb and dbt?
duckdb is written in C++ and dbt in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, duckdb or dbt?
Choose duckdb if you want the larger community (42,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dbt if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.