head to head · open source
duckdb vs starrocks
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars, 4,176 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. starrocks has 12,225 stars, 2,646 forks, 1,443 open issues and last shipped yesterday. duckdb leads on adoption by 250% (42,747 vs 12,225 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; starrocks is written in Java under Apache-2.0. duckdb has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, starrocks 22%. duckdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (analytics, 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 | starrocks | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 2.6K |
| 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 starrocks if
- You want the starrocks feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and starrocks 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 starrocks
Download Docs Benchmarks Demo StarRocks is the world's fastest open query engine for sub second, ad hoc analytics both on and off the data lakehouse. With average query performance 3x faster than other popular alternatives, StarRocks is a query engine that eliminates the need for denormalization and adapts to your use cases, without having to move your data or rewrite SQL. A Linux Foundation project. Learn more 👉🏻 What Is StarRocks: Features and Use Cases, Join StarRocks Summit 2025! Features 🚀 Native vectorized SQL engine: StarRocks adopts vectorization technology to make full use of the parallel computing…
read the full starrocks overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or starrocks more popular?
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars and starrocks has 12,225. duckdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are duckdb and starrocks free?
Both are open source. duckdb is licensed under MIT and starrocks under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between duckdb and starrocks?
duckdb is written in C++ and starrocks in Java. 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 starrocks?
Choose duckdb if you want the larger community (42,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose starrocks if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.