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An experimental embedded SQL engine in C++20. Query Parquet, CSV, JSON, Arrow, Avro, SQLite, and Excel files directly with SQL, in-process. Early-stage.

493 starsC++

SlothDB is a super fast embedded SQL database

by souravroy78·Apr 26, 2026·2 points·2 comments
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AI Analysis

●●●BangerWizardryBig BrainZero to One

1.3MB WASM database beats DuckDB 5x on 10M row analytics, runs in Cloudflare Workers.

Strengths
  • •Built from scratch with 1.3MB WASM build fitting Cloudflare Workers 1MB script cap
  • •Rules-based NL-to-SQL parser under 10ms, falls back to local Qwen models only when needed
  • •Direct file querying on Parquet, CSV, JSON, Avro, Arrow, SQLite, Excel without import step
Weaknesses
  • •v0.1.8 early stage with packaging bugs, Python wheel issue caught by stranger
  • •DuckDB has mature ecosystem, production deployments, and enterprise support
Category
Data
Target Audience

Data engineers, edge computing developers, browser-based analytics

Similar To

DuckDB · SQLite · MotherDuck

Post Description

SlothDB is a super fast embedded SQL database.

Point any SQL at any file. Parquet, CSV, JSON, Avro, Arrow, SQLite, Excel. No server, no import step, no extension to install before you can read a Parquet file. Same embedded model as SQLite and DuckDB, different defaults.

A few things we cared about while building it: It is one binary. Drop slothdb.exe somewhere, run it. It also runs in the browser. The WASM build is 1.3 MB and fits Workers 1 MB script cap in the edge variant.

It is fast enough to be worth the swap for analytical work. On a 5 query warm batch over 10M rows, SlothDB finishes in 138 ms. DuckDB 1.1.5 finishes the same batch on the same hardware in 540 ms.

It is also early and in development stages. v0.1.8. The Python wheel had a packaging bug that was only caught because a stranger filed an issue. So if you hit a rough edge, file one. SlothDB reads every one them.

Repo - https://github.com/SouravRoy-ETL/slothdb

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