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Use DuckDB-WASM to query TB of data in browser

(lil.law.harvard.edu)
227 points mlissner | 4 comments | 31 Oct 25 17:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.645s | source
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mlissner ◴[31 Oct 25 17:37 UTC] No.45774572[source]▶
OK, this is really neat: - S3 is really cheap static storage for files. - DuckDB is a database that uses S3 for its storage. - WASM lets you run binary (non-JS) code in your browser. - DuckDB-Wasm allows you to run a database in your browser.

Put all of that together, and you get a website that queries S3 with no backend at all. Amazing.

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1. thadt ◴[31 Oct 25 19:22 UTC] No.45775706[source]▶
S3 is doing quite a lot of sophisticated lifting to qualify as no backend at all.

But yeah - this is pretty neat. Easily seems like the future of static datasets should wind up in something like this. Just data, with some well chosen indices.

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2. theultdev ◴[31 Oct 25 19:39 UTC] No.45775873[source]▶
Still qualifies imo. Everything is static and on a CDN.

Lack of server/dynamic code qualifies as no backend.

3. simonw ◴[31 Oct 25 23:46 UTC] No.45777950[source]▶
I believe all S3 has to do here is respond to HTTP Range queries, which are supported by almost every static server out there - Apache, Nginx etc should all support the same trick.
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4. thadt ◴[01 Nov 25 01:15 UTC] No.45778446[source]▶
100%. I’m with y’all - this is what I would also call a “no-backend” solution and I’m all in on this type of approach for static data sets - this is the future, and could be served with a very simple web server.

I’m just bemused that we all refer to one of the larger, more sophisticated storage systems on the plant, composed of dozens of subsystems and thousands of servers as “no backend at all.” Kind of a “draw the rest of the owl”.