DuckDB is really having a moment
The ecosystem is very active, and they have recently opened up "community extensions" to bring your own functions, data types and connections. A barrier at the moment is that extensions are written in C++, though this limitation should be removed soon.
I've been building a lot on top of DuckDB, two of the projects I'm working on are linked in the article:
- Evidence (https://evidence.dev): Build data apps with SQL + Markdown
- DuckDB GSheets (https://duckdb-gsheets.com): Read/Write Google Sheets via DuckDB
1. Build something custom in js
2. Use a drag and drop BI tool
(1) works if you are a front-end dev, but then it means the dev team need to own it forever, deal with customer requests etc
(2) means the data team can run it, but there's poor release management, and normally doesn't look good in your app
Evidence's version tries to hit the sweet spot: It's still written in code so you have version control and flexibility for customization, but it's SQL and Markdown so the data team can maintain it