When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?

To access the course materials, assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience when you enroll in a course. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid. The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.

What will I get if I subscribe to this Specialization?

When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Specialization, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile.

Is financial aid available?

Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

DuckDB From Zero

4 days left! Save on skills that make you shine with 40% off 3 months of Coursera Plus. Save now

DuckDB From Zero

Instructor: Noah Gift

Included with

Learn more

4 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

Beginner level

Recommended experience

2 hours to complete

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

4 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

Beginner level

Recommended experience

2 hours to complete

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

What you'll learn

Embed DuckDB inside a Rust binary using bundled feature flags and choose between in-memory and on-disk connections.
Run SQL over local CSV, Parquet, and JSON files with read_csv_auto and read_parquet using projection and predicate pushdown.
Stream Arrow record batches from DuckDB into Polars and ship a polished single-file CLI with cargo dist.

Skills you'll gain

Tools you'll learn

Details to know

Shareable certificate

Add to your LinkedIn profile

See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills

Learn more about Coursera for Business

logos of Petrobras, TATA, Danone, Capgemini, P&G and L'Oreal

There are 4 modules in this course

e.g. This is primarily aimed at first- and second-year undergraduates interested in engineering or science, along with high school students and professionals with an interest in programming.DuckDB From Zero teaches you how to embed DuckDB directly into your Rust applications, treating an analytical SQL engine as a library rather than a server. Across four hands-on modules, you'll move from compiling DuckDB into a single binary to writing SQL queries over local CSV, Parquet, and JSON files, streaming Arrow record batches into Polars, and shipping a polished command-line tool with cargo dist.

By the end you will understand when in-memory connections beat on-disk databases, how projection and predicate pushdown make Parquet queries fast on a laptop, how to hand results to Polars zero-copy through the Arrow C Data Interface, and how to package a Rust CLI that bundles DuckDB so users can install nothing and still run analytical queries against gigabytes of data. The course is built around short videos, key-term readings, scenario-driven reflections, and an end-to-end demo project. You will leave with a working understanding of DuckDB-in-Rust patterns, the skills to design an analytical CLI you would actually want to use, and a clear mental model of where DuckDB fits between SQLite, Spark, and the Polars/Arrow ecosystem.

Module details

DuckDB as a library, not a server. How to compile it into a Rust binary, and when to use in-memory connections versus on-disk database files.

What's included

3 videos3 readings1 assignment

Querying CSV, Parquet, and JSON files directly with DuckDB. How the read_csv_auto and read_parquet table functions work, why projection and predicate pushdown matter, and how to handle nested JSON.

What's included

3 videos2 readings1 assignment

Moving DuckDB results into the broader data ecosystem via Apache Arrow. How to fetch Arrow record batches from DuckDB, hand them to Polars, and choose between DuckDB and Polars for each stage of a pipeline.

What's included

3 videos2 readings1 assignment

Packaging DuckDB-powered Rust code as a portable single-file CLI. How to design CLI ergonomics with clap, ship binaries with cargo dist, and wire main.rs to a lib.rs core that holds the DuckDB logic.