Apache Polaris Graduates to Top Level Project!

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Apache Polaris

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We are thrilled to announce that Apache Polaris has officially graduated from the Apache Incubator to become a Top Level Project (TLP) at the Apache Software Foundation (ASF).

This milestone marks a significant pivotal point for the project, moving from a promising proposal to a mature, community-governed standard for data cataloging and access control in the open data lakehouse.

What is Apache Polaris?🔗

For those who are new to the project, Polaris is a cloud-native, open-source catalog for Apache Iceberg. It provides a centralized service to manage your data across different engines and clouds, ensuring that your Iceberg tables remain interoperable and secure.

By providing a vendor-neutral implementation of the Apache Iceberg REST Catalog spec, Polaris solves one of the biggest headaches in modern data architecture: vendor lock-in. Whether you are using Dremio, Snowflake, Apache Spark, Trino, or Apache Flink, Polaris ensures they are all looking at the same source of truth.

Why Graduation Matters🔗

Graduating to a TLP is more than just a change in title. It’s a “seal of approval” from the ASF that the project has demonstrated:

  • The Apache Way: Demonstrated the ability to operate as a healthy, self-governing Apache project with the commitment to collaborative, transparent, peer-based, and meritocratic development using consensus-based decision-making and responsible oversight.
  • Community Health: A diverse, sustainable, and growing group of contributors from various organizations. Open governance driven by the community, in transparency, vendor neutrality.
  • Technical Maturity: A stable codebase that is ready for enterprise-grade production environments.

The Journey So Far🔗

Since entering the incubator, the progress has been nothing short of remarkable. We’ve seen a surge in contributions that have helped us implement:

  1. Cross-Engine Interoperability: Seamlessly sharing Iceberg tables across multiple processing engines.
  2. Fine-Grained Access Control: Centralized security policies that follow your data, no matter who is querying it.
  3. Multi-Cloud Support: The flexibility to run your catalog wherever your data lives.

What’s Next for Polaris?🔗

While we are celebrating today, our eyes are firmly on the horizon. As a Top Level Project, our focus will shift toward:

  • Expanding support for even more storage backends and engines.
  • Deepening our integration with the broader Apache Iceberg ecosystem.
  • Continuing to lower the barrier to entry for organizations adopting an open data lakehouse.

A Heartfelt Thank You🔗

This achievement belongs to you, our community of developers, users, and mentors. Whether you submitted a pull request, reported a bug, or shared your feedback on the mailing list, you played a vital role in getting us here.

Get Involved!🔗

There has never been a better time to join the Polaris community. Whether you’re a data engineer looking for a better way to manage Iceberg tables or a developer interested in open-source governance, we want your help.

Onward to the next chapter of open data management!