head to head · open source
duckdb vs postgres
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars, 4,176 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. postgres has 8,745 stars, 402 forks, 303 open issues and last shipped yesterday. duckdb leads on adoption by 389% (42,747 vs 8,745 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; postgres is written in JavaScript under Unlicense. duckdb has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, postgres 5%. duckdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (database), 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 | postgres | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 8.7K |
| License | MIT | Unlicense |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 402 |
| 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 postgres if
- You want the postgres feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Unlicense license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and postgres 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 postgres
🚀 Fastest full featured node & deno client 🏷 ES6 Tagged Template Strings at the core 🏄♀️ Simple surface API 🖊️ Dynamic query support 💬 Chat and help on Gitter 🐦 Follow on Twitter Getting started Installation Usage Create your sql database instance Simply import for use elsewhere ESM dynamic imports The library can be used with ESM dynamic imports as well as shown here. Table of Contents Connection Queries Building queries Advanced query methods Transactions Data Transformation Listen & notify Realtime subscribe Numbers, bigint, numeric Result Array Connection details Custom Types Teardown / Cleanup Error…
read the full postgres overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or postgres more popular?
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars and postgres has 8,745. duckdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are duckdb and postgres free?
Both are open source. duckdb is licensed under MIT and postgres under Unlicense. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between duckdb and postgres?
duckdb is written in C++ and postgres in JavaScript. 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 postgres?
Choose duckdb if you want the larger community (42,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose postgres if its feature set, stack or Unlicense licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.