DuckDB v2.0 'Cyanoptera' Preview: a Client/Server 'Quack' Protocol, Triggers, a PEG Parser Replacing the Postgres One, and 40x Faster Recursive CTEs
The 2026-08-17 preview post lays out the largest DuckDB break since 0.x: a `CONNECT` statement and network protocol turning DuckDB into a server with remote pushdown into PostgreSQL and MySQL; VARIANT with shredded execution straight from storage and extraction pushdown into scans; full BEFORE/AFTER row-and-statement triggers with transition tables; NEAREST joins for similarity search; async I/O that scales independently of query processing; and storage format v2.0 with DICT_FSST on by default. Benchmarks cited: recursive CTEs 4.90s → 0.12s (40x), timezone conversions 2.2x, German collation filtering 2.6x. Ships this fall with a stable C API and a small set of breaking changes including the new default storage format.
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