Columnar Current
Columnar-related news, posts, and talks from around the web
Recent posts
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3.7x Faster EL Pipelines: Arrow + ADBC vs. SQLAlchemy
dltHub Blog - February 3, 2026
Benchmarks Arrow with ADBC against SQLAlchemy for moving 5 million rows from DuckDB to MySQL, reducing time from 344s to 92s by eliminating row-by-row serialization overhead.
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New ADBC Driver for Databricks
ADBC Driver Foundry - January 28, 2026
Introduces an early version of the ADBC driver for Databricks, bringing initial support for high-performance columnar data connectivity with Databricks SQL warehouses and clusters through the Arrow Database Connectivity API.
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ADBC: An Intro to NextGen Database Connections
The Full Data Stack - January 15, 2026
Introduces ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity), a modern database access API that keeps data in columnar format throughout data pipelines, covering driver management with the dbc CLI tool, Python implementation, bulk data ingestion, and streaming large datasets between databases.
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Apache Arrow ADBC 22 (Libraries) Release
Apache Arrow Blog - January 9, 2026
The version 22 release of the ADBC libraries and drivers brings improvements including driver managers that can open connections using only a URI, bulk ingestion support in the Flight SQL driver, and transaction isolation level support in the PostgreSQL driver.
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Updated ADBC Drivers for BigQuery, SQL Server, MySQL, Redshift, Snowflake, and Trino
ADBC Driver Foundry - January 7, 2026
New versions of ADBC drivers are now available through dbc, introducing enhancements such as improved type support, better authentication options, and bug fixes across six major database platforms.
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ODBC Takes an Arrow to the Knee: ADBC
Subsurface World Tour - December 10, 2025
Columnar co-founder Matt Topol explains how ADBC avoids the conversion costs of row-oriented APIs like ODBC and JDBC by providing result sets directly in Arrow columnar format, enabling efficient access to data lakehouse systems like Dremio as well as data warehouse and relational database systems.
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What the Heck Is dbc?
HackerNoon - November 27, 2025
A hands-on walkthrough of dbc showing how a few simple commands can install ADBC drivers and connect to databases, lowering the barrier to entry for working with columnar data.
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Apache Arrow's Final Frontier: Replacing Outdated Database Drivers
The New Stack - November 3, 2025
Columnar launches with $4M in seed funding to address the database communication bottleneck using ADBC, reducing query times by more than 90% in many applications compared to legacy standards like ODBC and JDBC.
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Columnar launches to redefine data connectivity with Arrow-powered ADBC drivers
SiliconANGLE - October 29, 2025
Columnar, a startup founded by core Apache Arrow developers, secured $4 million in seed funding to accelerate data connectivity using Arrow-based drivers, particularly benefiting AI applications that require fast access to structured data.
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Meet the founders of Columnar: Ian Cook, David Li, and Matt Topol
Bessemer Venture Partners - October 29, 2025
Bessemer Venture Partners leads a $4M seed round for Columnar, a startup founded by Apache Arrow contributors to modernize data connectivity, offering Arrow-native ADBC drivers that deliver 10-100x faster query retrieval.
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Announcing the ADBC Driver Foundry
ADBC Driver Foundry - October 29, 2025
Introduces the ADBC Driver Foundry, a new open source hub for collaborative driver development within the Apache Arrow ecosystem, providing per-project repositories and shared resources for growing the ADBC project.
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Where We're Going, We Don't Need Rows: Columnar Data Connectivity with ADBC
CMU Database Group - October 20, 2025
Seminar presenting ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity), Apache Arrow's answer to ODBC and JDBC, exploring its architecture and adoption across major data systems including dbt, Databricks, DuckDB, and Snowflake.
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Data Wants to Be Free: Fast Data Exchange with Apache Arrow
Apache Arrow Blog - February 28, 2025
Examines how Apache Arrow improves data serialization efficiency compared to legacy formats like PostgreSQL's binary protocol, and presents various Arrow-based tools including Arrow IPC, Arrow HTTP, Arrow Flight SQL, and ADBC for building efficient data interchange protocols.
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How the Apache Arrow Format Accelerates Query Result Transfer
Apache Arrow Blog - January 10, 2025
Explains how Apache Arrow's columnar data format reduces serialization and deserialization bottlenecks in query result transfers, with real-world improvements ranging from 10x to several hundred times faster.