DuckDB 61,228 (github.com/duckdb/duckdb (https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb 41,877 ), MIT license) is an analytical database that runs inside another program, the way SQLite 4,756 does, with no server to start. It reads CSV, JSON and Parquet 129 files directly and runs columnar, vectorized queries on all your cores (DuckDB: In-Process OLAP explains how). You already have its Python package from Python Virtual Environment. Install the command-line shell too, with DuckDB's own install script, pinned to the book's version:
curl -fsSL https://install.duckdb.org | DUCKDB_VERSION=1.5.5 sh # to ~/.duckdb/cli/1.5.5
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.duckdb/cli/1.5.5:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
export PATH="$HOME/.duckdb/cli/1.5.5:$PATH"
duckdb --version
duckdb -c "SELECT version() AS version, 6 * 7 AS answer"Output
... Successfully installed DuckDB 1.5.5 to .../.duckdb/cli/1.5.5/duckdb ... v1.5.5 (Variegata) d8cdaa33fd ┌─────────┬────────┐ │ version │ answer │ │ varchar │ int32 │ ├─────────┼────────┤ │ v1.5.5 │ 42 │ └─────────┴────────┘
Without DUCKDB_VERSION, the script installs the newest release, which was 1.5.6 (28 September 2026) when this chapter was checked. Patch releases within 1.5 are bugfix releases, so either works for this book.