head to head · open source
duckdb vs mysql
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars, 4,176 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mysql has 15,274 stars, 2,340 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. duckdb leads on adoption by 180% (42,747 vs 15,274 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; mysql is written in Go under MPL-2.0. duckdb has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, mysql 15%. duckdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (database, 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 | mysql | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| 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 mysql if
- You want the mysql feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and mysql 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 mysql
Go MySQL Driver A MySQL Driver for Go's database/sql package Features Requirements Installation Usage DSN (Data Source Name) Password Protocol Address Parameters Examples Connection pool and timeouts context.Context Support ColumnType Support LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE support time.Time support Unicode support Testing / Development License Features Lightweight and fast Native Go implementation. No C bindings, just pure Go Connections over TCP/IPv4, TCP/IPv6, Unix domain sockets or custom protocols Automatic handling of broken connections Automatic Connection Pooling (by database/sql package) Supports queries larger…
read the full mysql overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or mysql more popular?
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars and mysql has 15,274. duckdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are duckdb and mysql free?
Both are open source. duckdb is licensed under MIT and mysql under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between duckdb and mysql?
duckdb is written in C++ and mysql in Go. 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 mysql?
Choose duckdb if you want the larger community (42,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mysql if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.