TLDR
- Amazon has signed a definitive agreement to acquire DuckLabs, the Amsterdam-based company behind open-source analytical database DuckDB.
- The DuckDB open-source project, DuckLake, and Quack will remain free and open-source under the independent DuckDB Foundation.
- Co-founders Hannes Mühleisen and Mark Raasveldt will stay on to lead the team and the open-source project’s technical direction.
- AWS and DuckLabs have had a working relationship since 2024.
- Amazon says the move aims to make AWS analytics faster, simpler, and more cost-effective for customers.
Amazon announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire DuckLabs, the Amsterdam-based company behind the widely used open-source analytical database DuckDB. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Today, @ducklabs_com is joining @awscloud. The move is expected to be completed by early September.
Joining AWS gives DuckLabs the resources and reach to bring DuckDB, DuckLake, and the Quack protocol to many more developers and organizations – and to pursue ideas at a scale… pic.twitter.com/RtiNhsOSHq
— DuckDB (@duckdb) August 26, 2026
The deal brings the DuckLabs engineering team into AWS. Co-founders Hannes Mühleisen and Mark Raasveldt, who created DuckDB together, will continue leading the team and the open-source project’s technical direction after the deal closes.
Amazon was clear on one key point: it is not acquiring DuckDB itself. The open-source project will remain free and governed independently by the DuckDB Foundation, a non-profit, under the MIT license.
“Joining AWS gives us the resources and reach to bring this technology to many more developers and organizations,” Mühleisen and Raasveldt wrote on the company’s website.
AWS and DuckLabs have worked together since 2024, so this is less of a cold acquisition and more of a deeper commitment to a relationship already in place.
What AWS Gets From the Deal
Andy Warfield, Amazon vice president and distinguished engineer, described DuckLabs as a team with a track record of building software that developers genuinely love. That is not a throwaway line.
“I find that sentiment, not just making data easy to work with, but actively empowering people to ask questions, build, and really innovate with data, is exactly in line with how AWS and our customers think about data,” Warfield said.
The goal, according to Amazon, is to make AWS analytics faster, simpler, and more cost-effective. That is a direct pitch to AWS customers who use analytical tools at scale.
The DuckLabs team is based in Amsterdam and will remain there after joining AWS, according to the announcement.
What Stays the Same for DuckDB Users
Amazon was deliberate in reassuring the DuckDB user base. Nothing changes for existing DuckDB users, the company said.
DuckLake and Quack projects are also excluded from the acquisition. All three will remain under the DuckDB Foundation’s governance.
This matters because DuckDB has built a strong following among data engineers and analysts. Any perception that Amazon could lock down the project would have been a problem.
Mühleisen and Raasveldt have been at the helm of DuckDB’s development for nearly a decade. Their continued involvement is a key part of how Amazon is framing this deal.
Amazon said it expects the transaction to close shortly, subject to customary closing conditions. Once closed, it plans to share more detail on how the two teams will work together.
The company said the DuckLabs team brings “world-class database engineering expertise,” which AWS intends to put directly to work for its analytics customers.
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