AWS acquires DuckDB maker DuckLabs, projects stay MIT open source

AWS Acquires DuckDB

DuckLabs announced it will join AWS, effective early September. DuckDB, DuckLake, Quack, and all open-source components stay MIT-licensed under the nonprofit DuckDB Foundation. The 30+ person team remains in Amsterdam. DuckDB now sees over 1 million daily downloads; the founders say their small company risked becoming a bottleneck for the project's growth. Joining AWS gives them infrastructure, scale, and customer reach to grow DuckDB by another couple orders of magnitude. The post does not disclose deal terms.

Why it matters: DuckDB's entire team joining AWS while the project stays foundation-governed and MIT-licensed is structurally more interesting than a standard acquisition. The 1M+ daily downloads and the team's candid admission that they risked becoming the bottleneck add real signal. Not sco...