duckdb-wasm-kit

Hooks and utilities to make it easier to use duckdb-wasm in React apps.

Install

npm install duckdb-wasm-kit
npm install @duckdb/duckdb-wasm

Note: duckdb-wasm is a peer dependency, so you can control what version you want to use.

useDuckDb hook

To initialize and access DuckDB from a React component, just call the useDuckDb hook:

import { useDuckDb } from "duckdb-wasm-kit";

const MyComponent = () => {
    const { db, loading, error } = useDuckDb();

    if (db) {
        // Do something with it
    }
    ...
}

The first time useDuckDb is called, it will take care of downloading the correct wasm bundle for your browser and initializing an AsyncDuckDb instance.

Multiple calls are fine, only one singleton instance will be created.

Preloading

Loading the DuckDB wasm bundle can take a few seconds. For a better user experience, you can optionally preload the DuckDB instance before it's needed, by calling initializeDuckDb.

You can also pass a DuckDBConfig to configure database options.

import { DuckDBConfig } from "@duckdb/duckdb-wasm";
import { initializeDuckDb } from "duckdb-wasm-kit";

const MyApp = () => {
    useEffect(() => {
        const config: DuckDBConfig = {
            query: {
                /**
                 * By default, int values returned by DuckDb are Int32Array(2).
                 * This setting tells DuckDB to cast ints to double instead,
                 * so they become JS numbers.
                 */
                castBigIntToDouble: true,
            },
        }
        initializeDuckDb({ config, debug: true });
    }, []);
    ...
}

Using existing .duckdb files

To load an existing .duckdb file, it must be accessible to your app via fetch. For example, you can host it in the public folder of your React app, on Github, or in a service like S3 (if CORS is enabled).

Configure the path in the DuckDBConfig to the path of your database.

For instance, if you have a database at ./sample_database.duckdb, you should configure:

import { DuckDBConfig } from "@duckdb/duckdb-wasm";
import { initializeDuckDb } from "duckdb-wasm-kit";

const MyApp = () => {
    useEffect(() => {
        const config: DuckDBConfig = {
            path: "./sample_database.duckdb"
        }
        initializeDuckDb({ config, debug: true });
    }, []);
    ...
}

Performance logging

If you call initializeDuckDb with debug: true, elapsed times for all queries will be logged to the browser console, which can be useful during development.

Accessing outside React

If needed, you can access DuckDb outside of React components like this:

import { getDuckDb } from "duckdb-wasm-kit";

const db: AsyncDuckDB = await getDuckDb();

useDuckDbQuery hook

As a convenience, we also provide a useDuckDbQuery hook to make it easier for components to react to the typical query lifecycle.

import { useDuckDbQuery } from "duckdb-wasm-kit";

const MyComponent = () => {
    const { arrow, loading, error } = useDuckDbQuery(`
        select * from movies
        where actor = 'John Cleese';
    `);

    if (loading) {
        return ...;
    }

    if (error) {
        return ...;
    }

    if (arrow) {
        return ...
    }
}

Of course, if you prefer to do things yourself, the useDuckDb hook gives you access to all the AsyncDuckDb methods.

Importing files

The insertFile function handles the annoying details of importing a file:

const { db } = useDuckDb();
const file: File = ...
const tableName = "myTable";

await insertFile(db, file, tableName);

The file can be a CSV, Arrow, or Parquet file. The format will be inferred automatically.

If a tableName isn't provided, file.name will be used.

Exporting files

We similarly provide functions for exporting files:

/**
 * Export a table/view to an Arrow file with a given filename.
 */
const exportArrow: (db: AsyncDuckDB, tableName: string, filename?: string) => Promise<File>;

/**
 * Export a table/view to a CSV file.
 */
const exportCsv: (db: AsyncDuckDB, tableName: string, filename?: string, delimiter?: string) => Promise<File>;

/**
 * Export a table/view to Parquet.
 *
 * Uses zstd compression by default, which seems to be both smaller & faster for many files.
 */
const exportParquet: (db: AsyncDuckDB, tableName: string, filename?: string, compression?: "uncompressed" | "snappy" | "gzip" | "zstd") => Promise<File>;

Parquet in the browser!

Parquet is an amazing format for compressing data files (often 90-95% smaller than CSV).

Unfortunately, Javascript has lacked an official Parquet library for years. It's not an easy format to implement, and it involves multiple compression codecs.

Luckily, duckdb-wasm now makes it trivial to import/convert/export Parquet files in the browser, with zero dependencies! 🎉

Try it out!

As a demo of what this library enables, check out duckbook.ai.

It's a free SQL notebook I built as a solo project, combining DuckDB with GPT-4 in a modern Notion-like interface.

Files are converted to Parquet and stored in IndexedDb in your browser, and compute happens locally in duckdb-wasm. No data is sent to or stored on my servers.

utils

I include a few common utils and queries in the utils/ folder, but these may be changed or removed in the future, so don't depend on them.

Contributing

Found a bug? Please submit an issue.

Contributors

Ramon Vermeulen

Changelog

• 0.1.39 (May 2025): Support React 19, add unit tests; use pnpm/biome for local dev.
• 0.1.38 (Sep 2024): Make duckdb-wasm a peer dependency.

License

MIT license.

Feel free to copy/fork code as you like. No need for attribution, but if you find this library helpful or build something cool with it, let me know!