head to head · open source
duckdb vs roapi
duckdb has 41,472 GitHub stars, 3,800 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped today. roapi has 3,434 stars, 209 forks, 66 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. duckdb leads on adoption by 1,108% (41,472 vs 3,434 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; roapi is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. duckdb has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, roapi 6%. 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 | roapi | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-03-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 209 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick duckdb if
- You weight community size — 41K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick roapi if
- You want the roapi 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 roapi fits your workflow better
About duckdb
DuckDB is an analytical, in process SQL database management system written in C++ and released under the MIT license. It runs inside the application process rather than as a separate server, and it is distributed as a standalone command line application as well as through clients for Python, R, Java, and WebAssembly. The project lives in the analytical SQL ecosystem, where the topics listed for it are analytics, database, embedded database, OLAP, and SQL. It has been developed for about eight years, with the last push recorded on 15 September 2026.
read the full duckdb overview →
About roapi
ROAPI ROAPI automatically spins up read only APIs for static datasets without requiring you to write a single line of code. It builds on top of Apache Arrow and Datafusion. The core of its design can be boiled down to the following: Query frontends to translate SQL, FlightSQL, GraphQL and REST API queries into Datafusion plans. Datafusion for query plan execution. Data layer to load datasets from a variety of sources and formats with automatic schema inference. Response encoding layer to serialize intermediate Arrow record batch into various formats requested by client. See below for a high level diagram: Install…
read the full roapi overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or roapi more popular?
duckdb has 41,472 GitHub stars and roapi has 3,434. duckdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are duckdb and roapi free?
Both are open source. duckdb is licensed under MIT and roapi under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between duckdb and roapi?
duckdb is written in C++ and roapi 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 roapi?
Choose duckdb if you want the larger community (41,472 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose roapi if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.