ClickHouse is a high-performance, column-oriented OLAP database management system written primarily in C++. It is designed for real-time analytics on large datasets, supporting SQL queries, distributed execution, and various storage engines (MergeTree, ObjectStorage, etc.). The architecture is monolithic but modular, with distinct layers for parsing (Parsers), planning (Analyzer/Planner), execution (Processors), and storage (Storages). Key entry points include the server binary (`clickhouse-server`) and client tools (`clickhouse-client`). It relies heavily on C++ templates, RAII, and a plugin-like registration system for functions and storage engines. It supports distributed queries via ZooKeeper/Keeper and integrates with various cloud storage providers (S3, Azure, GCS).
Apache Polaris is a production-grade, multi-tenant Iceberg REST catalog server built on Quarkus. It provides a REST API for catalog management (namespaces, tables, views), credential vending for cloud storage (S3, GCS, Azure), fine-grained authorization via built-in RBAC or external OPA/Ranger, and event publishing (Kafka, CloudWatch). The system supports two persistence backends: a legacy relational JDBC (PostgreSQL, H2) and a new NoSQL abstraction with custom indexing, caching, and distributed invalidation. Multi-tenancy is implemented via isolated realms, each with its own configuration and persisted state. Key entry points are the Quarkus server (`polaris-server`), a CLI admin tool, and a Python client. External dependencies include Iceberg libraries, Quarkus, Jackson, Testcontainers, and optional integrations like Open Policy Agent, Apache Ranger, and Kafka. The architecture is modular with clear SPI boundaries, making extensions (persistence, auth, federation) pluggable.
Databend is an open-source, cloud-native distributed SQL query engine and data warehouse, built in Rust. It provides a full SQL interface for analytical workloads, supporting operations such as SELECT, INSERT, COPY INTO/OUT, MERGE INTO, and complex aggregations with window functions, subqueries, and joins. The architecture follows a storage-compute separation model: a metadata service (Meta) manages schemas, users, and catalogs via a Raft-based consensus layer, while query nodes handle SQL parsing, planning, optimization (Cascades optimizer with rule-based and cost-based passes), and distributed execution over a pipelined framework. Multiple storage engines are supported, including a native columnar Fuse engine optimized for cloud object stores (S3, MinIO, Azure Blob), as well as external formats like Iceberg, Delta Lake, Hive, Paimon, Parquet, and ORC. The system exposes access via MySQL wire protocol, HTTP API, Flight SQL, and gRPC, and includes enterprise features such as data masking, row access policies, materialized views, streams, network policies, and role-based access control.
Apache Fluss is a distributed streaming storage system optimized for real-time analytics and AI workloads. It provides both log (append-only) and key-value (upsert) table semantics, with sub-second freshness and support for columnar formats via Apache Arrow. The system follows a two-tier server architecture: a coordinator server managing metadata, rebalancing, and ACLs, and tablet servers handling data storage, replication, and snapshot management. It integrates deeply with Apache Flink (source, sink, catalog, tiering) and Apache Spark (catalog, read/write), and includes lake tiering to Iceberg, Hudi, Paimon, and Lance formats. A native Rust client with Python, Elixir, and C++ bindings provides multi-language access, and a stateless REST gateway is available. The codebase demonstrates strong engineering practices: a clean SPI-based plugin system for filesystems, metric reporters, authentication, and lake storage; a comprehensive exception hierarchy; thorough metrics and monitoring; full-text predicate pushdown; and sophisticated memory management with off-heap memory segments and paged output views. Configuration is modular with providers for files, directories, and environment variables. The project includes extensive unit, integration, and behavior tests for filesystems, replication, rebalancing, and Flink compatibility across multiple versions. Notable reusable components include the throwing functional interfaces for checked exceptions, a clean JSON serialization framework with versioned test patterns, and a memory management subsystem offering reusable memory segment pools. The system is production-ready, with active development, low known security alerts, and continuous integration across multiple OS and storage backends.
pg_mooncake is a Postgres extension that adds a custom table access method ('mooncake') backed by Apache Iceberg, enabling real-time analytics on columnar data stored in Iceberg tables. It integrates DuckDB (via pg_duckdb) as the query engine for fast analytics and provides a background worker (moonlink) that streams changes from regular Postgres heap tables to Iceberg tables via logical replication, ensuring sub-second data freshness. The extension exposes SQL procedures to create columnstore mirrors of Postgres tables, manage snapshots, load files, and optimize storage. It is built using the pgrx framework for Rust-based Postgres extensions and supports Postgres versions 14-18. The architecture is a hybrid of a shared library loaded into the Postgres backend and a separate background worker process. The codebase is well-structured and actively developed, though many table access method callbacks are still stubs, indicating it is in an early but functional stage.