ADBC Driver for Spark Connect

An Apache Arrow ADBC driver for Apache Spark Connect. It speaks the Spark Connect gRPC protocol and exposes it through the standard ADBC API, so you get Arrow-native result sets from Spark with zero copy into pandas, Polars, DuckDB, or any Arrow consumer.

Documentation: https://hyukjinkwon.github.io/adbc-driver-spark/

Why this driver

ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity) is a vendor-neutral API for moving Arrow data in and out of databases, in the same spirit as JDBC and ODBC but columnar from end to end. Spark Connect already returns query results as Arrow IPC batches over gRPC, which makes it a natural fit for ADBC: there is no row-by-row conversion and no driver-side reshaping.

• Arrow native, end to end. Results stream from Spark as Arrow batches and reach your application as Arrow record batches. No per-row boxing.
• One driver, every language. The driver is built in Go and compiled to a C-ABI shared library that exposes the standard AdbcDriverInit entrypoint. It loads through the ADBC driver manager from C/C++, Python, R, Ruby, Rust, and Go.
• Standard surface. Python users get a PEP 249 (DBAPI 2.0) interface and fetch_arrow_table() / fetch_df() helpers. C/C++ users get the plain ADBC C API. No bespoke client to learn.
• Production focused. TLS and bearer-token auth, session and configuration options, metadata introspection (catalogs, schemas, tables, columns), prepared statements with parameter binding, and a CI matrix across Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Install

Python

pip install adbc-driver-spark

This pulls in the prebuilt shared library for your platform, plus adbc-driver-manager and pyarrow.

Go

go get github.com/HyukjinKwon/adbc-driver-spark

C, C++, R, Rust, Ruby, and other languages

These ecosystems all load the same C-ABI shared library through their existing ADBC driver manager, so there is no separate package to install for each. Get the shared library (libadbc_driver_spark.{so,dylib,dll}) from the Releases page (or build it from source, see Installation), then load it with the driver manager for your language:

Language	Driver manager	Guide
C / C++	libadbc_driver_manager	Using from C and C++
R	adbcdrivermanager (CRAN)	Using from R
Rust	adbc_driver_manager (crates.io)	Using from Rust
Ruby	red-adbc (RubyGems)	Using from Ruby

Point the driver manager's driver option at the shared library; it resolves the standard AdbcDriverInit entrypoint automatically.

Quickstart

Start a Spark Connect server (Spark 3.5.x, 4.0.x, or 4.1.x):

# From a Spark 4.x distribution (the Connect server is bundled)
./sbin/start-connect-server.sh
# Spark Connect listens on sc://localhost:15002 by default
# (On Spark 3.5.x, which does not bundle it, add:
#  --packages org.apache.spark:spark-connect_2.13:3.5.8)

Python

import adbc_driver_spark.dbapi as dbapi

with dbapi.connect("sc://localhost:15002") as conn:
    with conn.cursor() as cur:
        cur.execute("SELECT id, id * id AS square FROM range(5)")
        table = cur.fetch_arrow_table()   # pyarrow.Table
        print(table.to_pandas())

Go

package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"

	"github.com/apache/arrow-go/v18/arrow/memory"
	spark "github.com/HyukjinKwon/adbc-driver-spark/driver/spark"
)

func main() {
	drv := spark.NewDriver(memory.DefaultAllocator)
	db, _ := drv.NewDatabase(map[string]string{
		"uri": "sc://localhost:15002",
	})
	defer db.Close()

	cnxn, _ := db.Open(context.Background())
	defer cnxn.Close()

	stmt, _ := cnxn.NewStatement()
	defer stmt.Close()

	stmt.SetSqlQuery("SELECT id, id * id AS square FROM range(5)")
	reader, _, _ := stmt.ExecuteQuery(context.Background())
	defer reader.Release()

	for reader.Next() {
		fmt.Println(reader.Record())
	}
}

Runnable examples for Python, Go, C, R, Rust, and Ruby live in the examples directory, and the Python, C, R, Rust, and Ruby examples are run against a live Spark Connect server on every CI run. See the documentation for per-language guides.

Connecting and authentication

Connections use the standard Spark Connect connection string, passed as the ADBC uri option:

sc://host:port/;token=<jwt>;use_ssl=true;user_id=<id>;user_agent=<ua>

Common options:

Option	Meaning
uri	Spark Connect connection string (required)
adbc.spark.token	Bearer token for authentication
adbc.spark.tls.enabled	true or false
adbc.spark.user_id	Spark Connect user id
adbc.spark.user_agent	Custom user agent string
adbc.spark.headers.<NAME>	Extra gRPC metadata header

See the Configuration Reference for the full list.

Features

• SQL execution returning Arrow record batches.
• Prepared statements with Arrow parameter binding.
• DML and DDL via ExecuteUpdate.
• Metadata: GetObjects, GetTableSchema, GetTableTypes, GetInfo.
• Full Spark to Arrow type mapping, including decimal, timestamp, timestamp_ntz, array, map, and struct. See Type Mapping.
• TLS and bearer-token authentication.
• Works against Spark Connect on Spark 3.5.x, 4.0.x, and 4.1.x, and Databricks Connect compatible endpoints. Every line is exercised in CI against a live server.

Compatibility

Component	Supported
Spark Connect	Spark 3.5.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x (protos pinned to v4.1.2)
ADBC API	1.1.0
Python	3.9 - 3.13
Go	1.25+
Platforms	Linux (x86_64, aarch64), macOS (x86_64, arm64), Windows (x86_64)

See Compatibility and Conformance for the ADBC conformance matrix and known limitations.

Documentation

Full guides live at https://hyukjinkwon.github.io/adbc-driver-spark/.

Get started

• Installation
• Quickstart
• Connecting and Authentication

Guides

• Querying Data
• Python DBAPI
• Ecosystem Integrations (pandas, Polars, DuckDB, PyArrow)
• Metadata and Catalogs
• Type Mapping
• Configuration Reference

Using from each language

• Python
• Go
• C and C++
• Rust
• R
• Ruby

Reference

• Examples
• Compatibility and Conformance
• Architecture
• Troubleshooting

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to set up a development environment, run the tests, and submit changes. By participating you agree to the Code of Conduct.