# Alternatives for lazy/out-of-core data processing in Julia
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/alternatives-for-lazy-out-of-core-data-processing-in-julia/139631
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** package
**Created:** [September 23, 2026, 5:59pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/alternatives-for-lazy-out-of-core-data-processing-in-julia/139631 "2026-09-23T17:59:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@phchavesmaia](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/phchavesmaia)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2026, 5:59pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/alternatives-for-lazy-out-of-core-data-processing-in-julia/139631/1 "2026-09-23T17:59:01Z")
Hi all,
I’ve recently been working with some fairly I/O-intensive workflows and found that [DuckDB.jl](https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb) tends to be the recommended option for larger-than-memory data processing.
That said, I don’t particularly enjoy writing SQL-like queries, while I do enjoy working with table-like pipelines. So, for no particularly good reason other than my own enjoyment while coding, I started looking for alternatives to DuckDB that support lazy/out-of-core data processing in Julia, but haven’t had much luck.
To the best of my knowledge, [Polars.jl](https://juliapackages.com/p/polars) is the closest alternative, but it appears to be discontinued, with the only active fork still being highly experimental.
Does anyone know of other alternatives in the Julia ecosystem?
Best,
P.
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### Author:  [@mthelm85](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mthelm85)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2026, 6:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/alternatives-for-lazy-out-of-core-data-processing-in-julia/139631/2 "2026-09-23T18:43:56Z")
I feel your pain. I absolutely loathe writing SQL, and working with relational databases in general. Have a look at [TidierDB.jl](https://tidierorg.github.io/TidierDB.jl/latest/examples/generated/UserGuide/outofmemex/) - I think it does what you want with the DuckDB backend.
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### Author:  [@Jake](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Jake)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2026, 7:11pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/alternatives-for-lazy-out-of-core-data-processing-in-julia/139631/3 "2026-09-23T19:11:48Z")
You could try DuckDB with FunSQL. I don’t know SQL very well, but use it occasionally. This [section](https://mechanicalrabbit.github.io/FunSQL.jl/stable/guide/#Why-FunSQL?)of its manual convinced me to use it.