Amazon Web Services has acquired DuckLabs, the support and development company behind the popular open-source in-process database DuckDB. Written in C++ and embeddable directly within host applications, DuckDB has become a favourite among developers and analytics users since its 2022 launch, and the deal deepens AWS's relationship with a project it has increasingly relied on, including for S3 Tables support. Financial terms were not disclosed, and AWS has committed to keeping DuckDB and its related projects free and open source under their MIT licences.

DuckLabs was founded by DuckDB's original creators, Hannes Mühleisen and Mark Raasveldt, who previously developed the database as academics in Amsterdam; the team will continue to be based there after the merger. Governance of the project will remain with the independent nonprofit DuckDB Foundation, which Mühleisen said may gain an expanded role, including a possible Technical Advisory Board, to guard against conflicts of interest given DuckDB's integrations with other major tech firms such as Google. AWS distinguished engineer Andy Warfield said the company had worked closely with DuckLabs for about two years, notably around the DuckLake data lake project launched after DuckDB's 1.0 release in 2024.