DuckLabs joins AWS in deal that keeps DuckDB open source

DuckLabs, the Amsterdam team behind DuckDB, will become part of Amazon Web Services in early September 2026 while keeping DuckDB, DuckLake and Quack free and open source. The move is meant to expand DuckDB’s reach without changing Foundation stewardship or the projects’ MIT licenses.

Why it matters: - The deal gives DuckLabs more resources and AWS distribution to push DuckDB-powered tools to more developers and organizations. - DuckDB, DuckLake, Quack and other ecosystem projects will stay free and open source under their existing MIT licenses. - The DuckDB Foundation will continue to oversee the projects, preserving independent stewardship as the team joins a large cloud provider.

What happened: - DuckLabs will become part of Amazon Web Services, with the transaction expected to close in early September 2026. - The DuckLabs team will remain in Amsterdam and keep developing DuckDB, DuckLake, Quack and the broader DuckDB ecosystem. - Hannes Mühleisen, co-founder and CEO at DuckLabs, said the move gives the team a chance to build for a much larger audience while continuing to invest in open source. - AWS vice president and distinguished engineer Andy Warfield said the company is committed to continued development of DuckDB in open source and under DuckDB Foundation stewardship.

The details: - DuckLabs and AWS have worked together since early 2025. - Their collaboration included DuckDB support for Amazon S3 Tables and Amazon SageMaker Lakehouse. - DuckLabs said that work showed how DuckDB’s embedded analytics can support a broader set of data products and services. - DuckLabs expects the transaction to deepen the collaboration and extend the technology to users across more industries and technical environments. - DuckLabs said AWS will add resources, infrastructure and customer reach. - Mühleisen said that could let some users rely on the Duck stack without needing to operate a database themselves. - DuckDB, DuckLake, Quack and the rest of the open-source ecosystem will remain free software under MIT licenses. - The nonprofit DuckDB Foundation will continue stewardship of the projects. - DuckLabs plans to expand the Foundation’s role and create an advisory board so commercial users can help shape the roadmap. - DuckLabs also plans to make the extension community more open by allowing DuckDB to run extensions signed by other developers and organizations. - After the deal, DuckLabs will no longer depend on converting free users into commercial support customers. - DuckLabs said that should give the team more room to support open-source users, contributors, integrations and use cases. - The company will share more details on Foundation governance, the extension ecosystem, existing partnerships and the technical roadmap as plans develop.

Between the lines: - The transaction appears designed to keep DuckDB’s open-source identity intact while giving the team access to AWS scale. - DuckLabs is also shifting away from a support-led business model, which could reduce pressure to prioritize only commercial customers. - AWS gains a more deeply embedded analytics team and a project already popular with S3 users. - Mühleisen said DuckLabs has grown from an ambitious open-source project into technology used by developers and organizations around the world. - AWS said DuckDB is broadly used and loved by S3 customers today.

What's next: - The transaction is expected to take effect in early September 2026. - DuckLabs plans to keep working from Amsterdam after the closing. - More information on Foundation governance, extensions, partnerships and the product roadmap will come later. - DuckLabs expects continued growth in DuckDB adoption, which it says already exceeds three million downloads per day. - The company also expects to use AWS’s scale to reach more users across a wider range of industries and technical setups.

The bottom line: - DuckLabs is joining AWS, but the core DuckDB ecosystem is staying open source, MIT-licensed and under Foundation stewardship.