---
id: adbc-driver-manager
version: "1.12.0"
license: Apache-2.0
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# adbc-driver-manager — A generic entrypoint for ADBC drivers.

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 2.8M/mo

## What it is and what it does

ADBC Driver Manager is a Python package that acts as a generic loader for Apache Arrow Database Connectivity (ADBC) drivers. It provides both low-level bindings to the ADBC Driver Manager and a higher-level DBAPI 2.0-compatible interface (PEP 249) that lets you connect to databases through pluggable ADBC drivers at runtime. The package depends only on typing-extensions and requires Python >=3.10.

The main use case is as a foundation layer: backend-specific packages wrap this manager to provide a more convenient interface for their particular database. The DBAPI 2.0 interface includes extensions to retrieve Arrow Table objects instead of being limited to row-oriented results. This is useful when you need to work with columnar data or integrate with data processing pipelines that expect Arrow format.

Use it for:

- Load ADBC drivers dynamically at runtime without hardcoding a specific database backend.
- Use a DBAPI 2.0-compatible interface to query databases and retrieve results as Arrow Tables for columnar processing.
- Build database abstraction layers that support multiple backends through the ADBC standard.
- Integrate with data pipelines that expect Arrow format for efficient columnar data transfer.
- Develop tools that need to connect to multiple database types without depending on driver-specific packages.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Provides Python bindings to load and use ADBC database drivers at runtime, with a DBAPI 2.0-compatible interface and support for retrieving Arrow Table objects.

Yes, if you need a generic, runtime-loadable interface to ADBC drivers or are building a database abstraction layer. The active maintenance, permissive license, and lack of known vulnerabilities make it safe to use. Medium install friction is acceptable for a compiled package with broad platform support. Prefer backend-specific wrappers where they exist for a simpler API.

## Install

pip install adbc-driver-manager
uv add adbc-driver-manager
poetry add adbc-driver-manager

## Installing adbc-driver-manager

Before you install: Medium install friction due to compiled wheels for multiple Python versions and platforms. Active maintenance with recent releases; last commit 2026-08-14 and 621 repository stars indicate ongoing development.

License in practice: Apache-2.0 permissive license allows use in commercial and proprietary projects with minimal restrictions; attribution required.

Quickstart:

pip install adbc-driver-manager

import adbc_driver_manager

driver = adbc_driver_manager.load_driver('sqlite')

Requires a C++ compiler to build from source; prebuilt wheels available for Python 3.10 and later on macOS, Linux, and Windows. ADBC drivers must be loadable at runtime (e.g., on LD_LIBRARY_PATH or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH).

Verify before relying:

- Whether PyArrow is required as a runtime dependency or only for the DBAPI 2.0 Arrow extensions
- Which ADBC drivers are available and how they are distributed separately
- Performance characteristics compared to direct database drivers

## Package facts

- License: Apache-2.0 (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: medium
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 2.8M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

ADBC driver manager Python, database driver loader runtime, DBAPI 2.0 Arrow interface, Apache Arrow database connection, multi-backend database abstraction, database-abstraction, arrow-columnar, driver-loader

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