head to head · open source
duckdb vs duckdb-wasm
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars, 4,176 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. duckdb-wasm has 2,161 stars, 240 forks, 189 open issues and last shipped yesterday. duckdb leads on adoption by 1,878% (42,747 vs 2,161 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; duckdb-wasm is written in TypeScript under MIT. duckdb has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, duckdb-wasm 11%. duckdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (analytics, database, olap, sql), 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 | duckdb-wasm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 240 |
| 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 duckdb-wasm if
- You want the duckdb-wasm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and duckdb-wasm 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 duckdb-wasm
DuckDB Wasm DuckDB is an in process SQL OLAP Database Management System. DuckDB Wasm brings DuckDB to every browser thanks to WebAssembly. Duckdb Wasm speaks Arrow fluently, reads Parquet, CSV and JSON files backed by Filesystem APIs or HTTP requests and has been tested with Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Node.js. Learn more about DuckDB Wasm from our VLDB publication or the recorded talk. Try it out at shell.duckdb.org or at duckdb.org/visualizer. External third party embedding of DuckDB Wasm, read the API documentation, check out the web app examples, and chat with us on Discord. DuckDB and DuckDB Wasm DuckDB…
read the full duckdb-wasm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or duckdb-wasm more popular?
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars and duckdb-wasm has 2,161. duckdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are duckdb and duckdb-wasm free?
Both are open source. duckdb is licensed under MIT and duckdb-wasm under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between duckdb and duckdb-wasm?
duckdb is written in C++ and duckdb-wasm in TypeScript. 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 duckdb-wasm?
Choose duckdb if you want the larger community (42,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose duckdb-wasm if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.