Add Arrow Native (ADBC) Server Protocol for High-Performance Data Access

[borodark]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Analytics backends and data science tools increasingly demand high-performance, binary data transfer protocols. The current REST HTTP API, while flexible and widely compatible, introduces significant overhead for data-intensive workloads:

• JSON serialization/deserialization adds latency
• Text-based protocols are inefficient for large result sets
• No standard binary protocol means each client must implement custom optimizations

Modern analytics ecosystems (Python/pandas, R, Julia, Elixir/Livebook) are converging on Arrow as the standard in-memory columnar format, and ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity) as the standard database access API. Users expect databases and semantic layers to support these standards natively.

Describe the solution you'd like

Add an Arrow Native server to CubeSQL that:

1. Speaks Arrow IPC protocol on a dedicated port (default: 8120)
2. Returns Arrow RecordBatches directly - no JSON serialization overhead
3. Works with this ADBC client, Python.
4. Optional query result caching for repeated queries
   This enables 8-15x faster data transfer compared to the REST API for typical analytics workloads.

Describe alternatives you've considered

1. Arrow Flight SQL - More complex protocol, requires gRPC. ADBC is simpler and sufficient for CubeSQL's use case.
2. Optimizing REST API - JSON will always have serialization overhead. Binary protocols are fundamentally faster for columnar data.
3. Custom binary protocol - Would require custom clients. ADBC is an emerging standard with growing ecosystem support.

Additional context

The ADBC ecosystem is maturing rapidly:

• Elixir/Livebook: The https://github.com/livebook-dev/adbc library provides ADBC bindings for the Elixir ecosystem. A working CubeSQL client extension is available at feat: Add Cube ADBC Driver for CubeSQL  borodark/adbc#2.
• Real-world usage: The DataFrame from ADBC Client of Cube  borodark/power_of_three#5 library demonstrates ADBC integration with Cube, showing 8-15x performance improvements over REST in production-like scenarios.
• Python/pandas: ADBC is becoming the recommended way to fetch data into DataFrames, replacing older approaches.

Having options is good - especially when one option is significantly faster. Users connecting BI tools via PostgreSQL protocol still work. Users calling the REST API still work. But users who need maximum performance now have a path: ADBC on port 8120.

Performance comparison (cached, 20K rows):

• REST HTTP API: 2133ms
• Arrow Native: 8ms (266x faster)

[igorlukanin]

Hi @borodark, thanks for the suggestion as well as a PR!

I wonder though, is it even fair to use the REST API in the comparison? It's primarily intended to be used in embedded analytics applications where using JSON as a format is very well justified by its general support in JavaScript ecosystem.

I've checked your linked ADBC client and the power_of_three project as well. I wonder if the SQL API is a better option for it, especially given that it supports streaming.

Leveraging the actively developed and widely used SQL API in your app looks like a much better option to me. Would you agree?

[borodark]

I wonder though, is it even fair to use the REST API in the comparison? It's primarily intended to be used in embedded analytics applications where using JSON as a format is very well justified by its general support in JavaScript ecosystem.

Agree it's not fair. Ludicrous numbers!

I've checked your linked ADBC client and the power_of_three project as well. I wonder if the SQL API is a better option for it, especially given that it supports streaming.

Yes, using SQL API with Ecto.Repo was the starting point of this journey. However our Ecto working with Postgres insisted on very particular way to fetch types catalog and schema information that CubeSQLD was not able to provide: Ecto breaks connecting to Cubes CUBEJS_PG_SQL_PORT with our standard Postgress driver. The same happens with ADBC Postgres driver.

At that point it became a testing ground for Claudes ability to Rust and C++.

Leveraging the actively developed and widely used SQL API in your app looks like a much better option to me. Would you agree?

Yes! We shall fix the cubesqld to support postgress catalog as required by Ecto and ADBC first.
Only then we may fairly race this approach with SQLAPI.

I am not sure if Experimental feature is option here - I'll keep maintaining this in my fork until then.

[igorlukanin]

We shall fix the cubesqld to support postgress catalog as required by Ecto and ADBC first.

You're welcome to file a separate issue or issues for this.