Question 1

What is ADBC?

Accepted Answer

ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity) is an Apache Arrow standard for database access, in the same spirit as ODBC and JDBC — except that its API is columnar. A query returns Arrow RecordBatches rather than rows, so there is no conversion step between the driver and a modern analytics engine.

Question 2

What do you mean by a "wire-protocol" driver?

Accepted Answer

A wire-protocol driver speaks the database's own network protocol directly — MS-TDS for SQL Server, Frontend/Backend for PostgreSQL, TNS/TTC for Oracle — instead of linking a vendor client library such as libpq, OCI or an ODBC manager. That is what makes it independent: nothing else to install, version-match or ship with your application. It is also why it is typically faster — there is no extra client library sitting between the socket and your Arrow buffers.

Question 3

How is this different from the ODBC driver my database vendor ships?

Accepted Answer

An ODBC driver hands you rows. Something downstream then has to walk those rows and rebuild columns before pandas, Polars or DuckDB can use them. Our drivers decode the wire protocol straight into Arrow column buffers, so that rebuild never happens — and no ODBC manager or vendor client library has to be deployed.

Question 4

Do I need to install Oracle Instant Client, libpq or the SQL Server client?

Accepted Answer

No. Each driver implements the database wire protocol itself: MS-TDS 7.4 for SQL Server, Frontend/Backend v3 for PostgreSQL, TNS + TTC for Oracle. Beyond libc, OpenSSL is the only runtime dependency.

Question 5

Which platforms are supported?

Accepted Answer

Linux (x64) and Windows (x64) today. macOS binaries are staged but not yet published.

Question 6

Which languages can load the drivers?

Accepted Answer

Any ADBC client. The documentation shows Python, C/C++, C# / .NET, Go, Java, R and Rust — all of them load the driver by name, because the installer registers an ADBC manifest.

Question 7

Are the drivers free?

Accepted Answer

The binaries are free to download from public GitHub Releases, but they are licence-gated: a driver needs a valid Arpeio licence at runtime, and there is no trial build. Contact sales@arpe.io for a licence.

Question 8

How does authentication work in an enterprise environment?

Accepted Answer

The drivers cover the mechanisms enterprises actually use: Kerberos and Windows SSPI, Microsoft Entra ID, SCRAM-SHA-256 with channel binding, OCI IAM tokens, wallet-based mutual TLS and proxy connections. The exact list depends on the driver — see its authentication page.

Question 9

Is a Db2 driver coming?

Accepted Answer

A Db2 driver is in development. Write to sales@arpe.io if you want to hear when the first build ships.

Question 10

Can I use the drivers with pandas, Polars or DuckDB?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and that is the point. Because the result is already an Arrow table, those tools consume it without a copy — fetch_arrow_table() in Python hands you something pandas, Polars and DuckDB all read natively.

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