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Beta — the API is settling. Breaking changes before 1.0 are possible; check the changelog before upgrading. Current version: 0.1.0-beta.8.
better-duck is a safe, embedded-first Rust client for DuckDB. The DuckDB C library compiles straight into your binary — no system package, no runtime dependency — and every FFI call is wrapped so nothing unsafe leaks into your code, across the full DuckDB type system.

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Highlights

  • Bundled DuckDB — compiles from source; no system library to install.
  • Row-oriented, Arrow-optional — a lean dependency tree for application-level OLAP, with an opt-in arrow feature that exports results via the Arrow C Data Interface with no added dependencies.
  • Safe by construction — the whole DuckDB type system behind a safe API.
  • Comprehensive types — every integer width, DECIMAL, UUID, BIT, BIGNUM, temporals, and the composite LIST / ARRAY / STRUCT / MAP / UNION / ENUM types.
  • Diesel 2.3 backend — query DSL, migrations, an r2d2 pool, and a large library of DuckDB-specific SQL functions, aggregates, and operators.
  • UDFs & derives — register plain Rust functions as scalar/table/aggregate/cast functions and map Rust structs/enums to DuckDB rows and types with #[derive(…)] — no unsafe, no manual vectors.
  • Embedded-first — built to run inside Tauri desktop apps, iOS cross-builds, and anywhere a system library isn’t an option.

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Start here

Introduction

What better-duck is, the crate map, and how the pieces fit together.

Quickstart

Open a connection, run a query, and read values end-to-end.

Installation

Add the crates, pin the beta version, and understand bundled DuckDB.

Feature flags

Every Cargo feature explained — and when to turn it on.

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Explore by area

Core + Macros

The DuckDB client API — connections, queries, parameters, the appender, columnar chunks, async, pooling, Arrow/Polars — plus the UDF and data-derive macros.

Diesel ORM

The Diesel 2.3 backend — schema, CRUD, the DuckDB-only SQL DSL, type mapping, and pooling.

Tauri plugin

Expose embedded DuckDB to a Tauri v2 webview as a local analytics engine.

DuckDB essentials

The SQL dialect, type system, and engine behaviors as seen through the driver.