Kùzu
discontinuedby Kùzu Inc. (acquired by Apple) · since 2022 · also known as Kuzu, KuzuDB
Embedded columnar property-graph database with Cypher; archived in 2025 after Apple acquired the team.
discontinued. Repo archived 2025-10-10 (final release 0.11.3) after Apple agreed to acquire Kùzu Inc.; community fork LadybugDB continues the code.
Overview
Kùzu was an embedded, in-process property-graph database from the University of Waterloo, often described as DuckDB for graphs: columnar storage, CSR adjacency indexes, vectorized and factorized query processing, and worst-case-optimal joins, all queried with Cypher. It added vector and full-text indexes and ran in Python, Node.js, Rust, Java and WebAssembly. In October 2025 Apple agreed to acquire Kùzu Inc. and the GitHub repository was archived on 10 October 2025 with 0.11.3 as the final release. The MIT code lives on in community forks, notably LadybugDB, which is where new projects should look.
Strengths & trade-offs
Strengths
- +Fast analytical multi-hop joins thanks to factorized, vectorized execution
- +Zero-ops embedded deployment with MIT license
- +Reads Parquet, CSV, DuckDB and Postgres data directly
Trade-offs
- −Discontinued: archived October 2025, no fixes or releases
- −Single-writer embedded model, no client-server mode
- −Extensions and binary downloads may disappear over time
Great for
- +Existing embedded deployments planning migration
- +Reference for LadybugDB-compatible data files
Think twice for
- −Any new project (use LadybugDB)
- −Multi-user server deployments
Capabilities
Native or official first-party support · 8 of 25 tracked
Scale & consistency
- Comfortable data size
- Medium · ≤ 10 TB
- Horizontal scaling
- None
- Multi-region
- No
- Transactions
- Full ACID
- Consistency
- Strong
- Schema
- Strict
- Architecture
- Embedded
- Query languages
- Cypher
Single process; disk-based columnar storage handles graphs larger than memory.
Deployment
Ecosystem
Alternatives to Kùzu
Community-maintained continuation of Kùzu: embedded columnar graph database with Cypher.
kuzu vs ladybugdb →In-process columnar SQL database: the SQLite of analytics, running inside your app or notebook.
kuzu vs duckdb →In-memory, Cypher-compatible graph database in C++ for streaming and real-time graph workloads.
kuzu vs memgraph →Low-latency graph database using sparse matrices, the maintained successor to RedisGraph.
kuzu vs falkordb →The default property-graph database, with Cypher, a big ecosystem and a managed cloud.
kuzu vs neo4j →Embedded Datalog database blending relational, graph and vector queries; dormant since 2024.
kuzu vs cozodb →Kùzu FAQ
What is Kùzu?
Kùzu is a graph database by Kùzu Inc. (acquired by Apple), first released in 2022. Kùzu was an embedded, in-process property-graph database from the University of Waterloo, often described as DuckDB for graphs: columnar storage, CSR adjacency indexes, vectorized and factorized query processing, and worst-case-optimal joins, all queried with Cypher. It added vector and full-text indexes and ran in Python, Node.js, Rust, Java and WebAssembly. In October 2025 Apple agreed to acquire Kùzu Inc. and the GitHub repository was archived on 10 October 2025 with 0.11.3 as the final release. The MIT code lives on in community forks, notably LadybugDB, which is where new projects should look.
Is Kùzu open source?
Yes. Kùzu is open source. License: MIT License.
Does Kùzu support ACID transactions?
Yes. Kùzu supports full ACID transactions, with strong consistency.
Does Kùzu scale horizontally?
Kùzu does not scale horizontally; it runs on a single node, so you scale it up rather than out. It is comfortable at medium scale (≤ 10 TB).
How can I run Kùzu?
You can self-host it and embed it in your application.
What is Kùzu best for?
Kùzu is a strong fit for existing embedded deployments planning migration and reference for LadybugDB-compatible data files. Think twice for any new project (use LadybugDB).
What are the best alternatives to Kùzu?
Common alternatives to Kùzu include LadybugDB, DuckDB, Memgraph, FalkorDB and Neo4j. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.
Is Kùzu still maintained?
Kùzu is discontinued. Repo archived 2025-10-10 (final release 0.11.3) after Apple agreed to acquire Kùzu Inc.; community fork LadybugDB continues the code.
How popular is Kùzu?
Kùzu ranks #284 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (11.2/100), and #22 among graph databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.