arcadedb (native build)

This is arcadedb, the native build of the ArcadeDB Python bindings, and the default choice for scripts, notebooks, tests, CLIs, serverless functions and agents. Its sibling arcadedb-jvm runs the Java engine on a bundled JVM: use arcadedb-jvm for heavy, long-running loads, where the JIT compiler makes the engine faster over time, and when you need the Java-object APIs. Both packages import arcadedb and have the same public API. Install one, not both. Which package?

ArcadeDB (SQL, openCypher, document, graph, vector, time series) runs in your Python process without a JVM and without JPype. The engine is compiled ahead of time with GraalVM Community Edition into a shared library (libarcadedb.so, .dylib or .dll), and Python loads it with ctypes. It starts in milliseconds and has a small memory footprint.

Transition note: the first release of this layout is 26.11.1. Until arcadedb passes its readiness bar, it may appear only as pre-releases, 26.11.1.devN. Install those with uv add --prerelease allow arcadedb. Report problems at https://github.com/ArcadeData/arcadedb-python/issues and say that you use the native build.

Install

uv add arcadedb

Optional extras for the columnar helpers: [numpy], [arrow], [pandas], [polars].

Old names: this package was formerly arcadedb-embedded-native, imported as arcadedb_native. The old project is archived on PyPI: it gets no new releases and no shim. A last release of the JVM project arcadedb-embedded will install this package.

If arcadedb-jvm is installed in the same environment, import arcadedb raises an ImportError that names both packages. Run uv remove arcadedb arcadedb-jvm, then install the one you want.

Use

import arcadedb

print(arcadedb.__backend__)   # "native"

with arcadedb.create_database("/tmp/demo") as db:
    db.schema.create_vertex_type("Person")
    with db.transaction():
        db.command("sql", "CREATE VERTEX Person SET name = ?", "Ada")
    print(db.query("sql", "SELECT FROM Person").to_list())

arcadedb.__backend__ is native for this package and jvm for arcadedb-jvm. arcadedb.__version__ is the package version.

What is in the wheel

• The shared library with the ArcadeDB engine: SQL and openCypher, the document, graph, key/value, vector and time series models, ACID transactions, and the in-process server with its HTTP API and the Postgres, Redis and Bolt wire protocols.
• The Python API on top of it, loaded with ctypes.
• Not in the image: gRPC, the MongoDB wire protocol, Raft/HA and Gremlin.
• No polyglot scripting languages (js or python as query languages, script triggers, polyglot functions). The polyglot engine is switched off at start-up (arcadedb.polyglotEngineEnabled=false), so the first database open writes nothing at WARNING.

Platforms

CPython 3.11 to 3.15. One wheel per platform serves every Python version, because the library is loaded with ctypes and is not compiled against CPython. The images are built for the baseline CPU of the platform (-march=compatibility), so they do not need a special instruction set. On 3.15 the CI runs a subset of the tests, because jpype1 and ladybug, two dependencies of the full test suite, have no 3.15 wheel yet.

Intel macOS, Windows arm64 and musl-based Linux (Alpine) are not built and not supported. On an Intel Mac use Docker or a Linux virtual machine; on Alpine use a glibc image such as python:3.12-slim.

Not available or not yet

• JVM-only APIs do not exist: get_java_database() and the other get_java_* calls, start_jvm(), jvm_kwargs and JVM options. There is no JVM. Use arcadedb-jvm if you need them.
• A few API calls raise NotOnNativeYet (a NotImplementedError) instead of misbehaving: AsyncExecutor.transaction, find_nearest_approximate over product quantization, get_metadata of a foreign index, and get_stats.
• Free-threaded Python (3.14t) runs a subset of the tests in CI; it is informational and does not gate a release.

The bindings' own tests run against the installed wheel (the parity run). What does not pass is the list above, or JVM-only by nature.

Licence

Apache-2.0 for ArcadeDB and these bindings. The library also contains the GraalVM Community Edition runtime and JDK class library code, licensed GPLv2 with the Classpath Exception, plus the Apache/BSD/MIT/UPL/EDL third-party Java libraries listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md. All texts and the source locations are in the wheel's *.dist-info/licenses/.