--- title: Delta Lake without Spark | daily.dev description: Delta Lake tables can be read and written without Spark using either dedicated Delta Connectors (for Flink, Hive, Trino, PrestoDB, Amazon Athena, Snowflake,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/delta-lake-without-spark-3aaf07xsp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Delta Lake without Spark | daily.dev og:description: Delta Lake tables can be read and written without Spark using either dedicated Delta Connectors (for Flink, Hive, Trino, PrestoDB, Amazon Athena, Snowflake,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/delta-lake-without-spark-3aaf07xsp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/3AaF07xsp.png og:image:alt: Delta Lake without Spark og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Delta Lake without Spark **[Delta Lake Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/delta-lake)** · 15 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Delta Lake tables can be read and written without Spark using either dedicated Delta Connectors (for Flink, Hive, Trino, PrestoDB, Amazon Athena, Snowflake, Google BigQuery) or the delta-rs library, which provides Rust and Python APIs and integrates with pandas, Polars, Dask, Daft, DuckDB, and Datafusion. Each connector's supported operations, known limitations, and code examples for reading, writing, and time-travel queries are covered, along with how delta-rs uses Apache Arrow to avoid the JVM entirely. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Can I use Delta Lake with pandas or Polars without installing Spark or Java? Yes, the delta-rs library lets you read, write, and manage Delta Lake tables with Python or Rust without Spark or the JVM. It uses Apache Arrow under the hood, making it compatible with pandas, DuckDB, and Polars, and it exposes both a Rust API and a Python 'deltalake' API for time travel and read/write operations. _daily.dev surfaces practical guides for teams choosing lightweight Delta Lake tooling over full Spark clusters._ ### Which Delta Lake connectors support write operations versus read-only access? The Hive, PrestoDB, and Amazon Athena connectors are read-only with no write support, while the Flink connector supports append-only writes (no overwrite or upsert), and the Trino connector supports full append, overwrite, and merge operations. Snowflake and BigQuery use external tables that are also read-only and currently marked as preview or pre-GA features. _Compare connector capabilities on daily.dev before picking a query engine for your Delta Lake setup._ ### How do I use dask-deltatable with a newer version of Dask like 2024.3.0? Dask's new query planner introduced in version 2024.3.0 must be disabled before importing dask-deltatable, since dask-deltatable only works with deltalake==0.13.0 and is incompatible with the new planner. The config must be set before the dask-deltatable import for it to take effect, as noted in the Dask changelog. _daily.dev helps engineers track compatibility quirks like this across evolving data-tooling stacks._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Delta Kernel \(Rust\) and the future of the Lakehouse.](https://daily.dev/posts/delta-kernel-rust-and-the-future-of-the-lakehouse--twurulaae) · Confessions of a Data Guy · 15 upvotes · 1 comments - [Advancing the Open Lakehouse with Apache Spark, the Delta Kernel, and the new UC Delta APIs](https://daily.dev/posts/advancing-the-open-lakehouse-with-apache-spark-the-delta-kernel-and-the-new-uc-delta-apis-dbaazlwws) · Delta Lake Blog · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Apache Iceberg vs Delta Lake: Choosing the Right Table Format](https://daily.dev/posts/apache-iceberg-vs-delta-lake-choosing-the-right-table-format-vtnia2ems) · BigData Boutique blog · 7 upvotes · 0 comments - [Delta Lake Explained: Boost Data Reliability in Cloud Storage](https://daily.dev/posts/delta-lake-explained-boost-data-reliability-in-cloud-storage-oechbmvm4) · databricks · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#data-engineering](https://daily.dev/tags/data-engineering), [#apache-spark](https://daily.dev/tags/apache-spark), [#duckdb](https://daily.dev/tags/duckdb) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/delta-lake-without-spark-3aaf07xsp) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Delta Lake without Spark","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/delta-lake-without-spark-3aaf07xsp","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/delta-lake-without-spark-3aaf07xsp"},"datePublished":"2026-08-16T08:53:37.792Z","dateModified":"2026-08-16T08:56:15.554Z","description":"Delta Lake tables can be read and written without Spark using either dedicated Delta Connectors (for Flink, Hive, Trino, PrestoDB, Amazon Athena, Snowflake,...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ac1d36dd8f8529270b00a8559ae53267?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ac1d36dd8f8529270b00a8559ae53267?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Delta Lake Blog","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Delta Lake Blog","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--7f2q9Asf--/f_auto,q_auto/v1786870393/logos/delta-lake?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/delta-lake"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/delta-lake-without-spark-3aaf07xsp","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"data-engineering,apache-spark,duckdb","timeRequired":"PT15M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Delta Lake Blog","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/delta-lake"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Delta Lake without Spark"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/delta-lake-without-spark-3aaf07xsp#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Can I use Delta Lake with pandas or Polars without installing Spark or Java?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes, the delta-rs library lets you read, write, and manage Delta Lake tables with Python or Rust without Spark or the JVM. 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