DBMS > Apache Drill vs. CockroachDB vs. DuckDB

System Properties Comparison Apache Drill vs. CockroachDB vs. DuckDB

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Schema-free SQL Query Engine for Hadoop, NoSQL and Cloud Storage

CockroachDB is a distributed database architected for modern cloud applications. It is wire compatible with PostgreSQL and backed by a Key-Value Store, which is either RocksDB or a purpose-built derivative, called Pebble.

An embeddable, in-process, column-oriented SQL OLAP RDBMS

Primary database model

Document store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	1.89
Rank	#122	Overall
	#22	Document stores
	#58	Relational DBMS

Score	3.90
Rank	#68	Overall
	#36	Relational DBMS

Score	7.44
Rank	#44	Overall
	#27	Relational DBMS

Website

drill.apache.org

www.cockroachlabs.com

duckdb.org

Technical documentation

drill.apache.org/docs

www.cockroachlabs.com/docs

duckdb.org/docs

Developer

Apache Software Foundation

Cockroach Labs

Initial release

2012

2015

2018

Current release

1.20.3, January 2023

24.1.0, May 2024

1.0.0, June 2024

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

Apache Version 2

Open Source

Apache 2.0, commercial license available

Open Source

MIT License

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

C++

Server operating systems

Linux
OS X
Windows

Linux
macOS
Windows

server-less

Data scheme

schema-free

dynamic schema

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

SQL SELECT statement is SQL:2003 compliant

yes, wire compatible with PostgreSQL

yes

APIs and other access methods

JDBC
ODBC
RESTful HTTP API

JDBC

Arrow Database Connectivity (ADBC)
CLI Client
JDBC
ODBC

Supported programming languages

C++

C#
C++
Clojure
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PHP
Python
Ruby
Rust

C
C#

3rd party driver
C++
Crystal

3rd party driver
Go

3rd party driver
Java
Lisp

3rd party driver
Python
R
Ruby

3rd party driver
Rust
Swift
Zig

3rd party driver

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

user defined functions

Triggers

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

Sharding

horizontal partitioning (by key range)

all tables are translated to an ordered KV store and then broken down into 64MB ranges, which are then used as replicas in RAFT

none

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication using RAFT

none

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

yes

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

none

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

yes, multi-version concurrency control (MVCC)

Durability

Support for making data persistent

Depending on the underlying data source

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

Depending on the underlying data source

yes

User concepts

Access control

Depending on the underlying data source

Role-based access control

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More resources

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Recent citations in the news

Apache Drill vs. Apache Spark – Which SQL query engine is better for you?
23 September 2019, Towards Data Science

Apache Drill improves big data SQL query engine
31 August 2021, TechTarget

Apache Drill case study: A tutorial on processing CSV files
9 June 2016, theserverside.com

MapR Advances Support for Flexible and High Performance Analytics on JSON and S3 Data with Apache Drill
30 January 2019, Business Wire

Drill Mines Diverse Data Sets, Google Style
20 May 2015, The Next Platform

provided by Google News

IBM Expands Its Hybrid Cloud and AI Capabilities with CockroachDB Integration
7 May 2025, TipRanks

Cockroach Labs Brings Distributed SQL to IBM LinuxONE and Linux on IBM Z
7 May 2025, StreetInsider

Cockroach Labs Brings Distributed SQL to IBM LinuxONE and Linux on IBM Z
7 May 2025, Longview News-Journal

Cockroach Labs shakes up its licensing to force bigger companies to pay
15 August 2024, TechCrunch

AI Meets Resilience: Cockroach Labs Intros CockroachDB 24.2
2 October 2024, Channel Insider

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Hands-On Exploratory Data Analysis with DuckDB
8 May 2025, Packt

Streamlining access to tabular datasets stored in Amazon S3 Tables with DuckDB | Amazon Web Services
18 March 2025, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Analyzing JSON Data with DuckDB and SQL
1 May 2025, KDnuggets

Abusing DuckDB-WASM To Create Doom In SQL
23 April 2025, Hackaday

DuckDB project releases Local web UI, but not as open source
19 March 2025, devclass

provided by Google News

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