ApexBase

ApexBase is a high-performance embedded HTAP database with a Rust core and a Python-first API.

Install it, write local .apex table files, run analytical SQL, import/export DataFrames, and optionally expose the same data through PostgreSQL Wire or Arrow Flight. No separate database service is required.

Why ApexBase

Install

pip install apexbase

Build from source:

python -m pip install maturin
maturin develop --release

30-Second Example: FTS + SQL + Vector Search In One Local File

from apexbase import ApexClient

with ApexClient("./rag-data") as client:
    client.execute("""
        CREATE TABLE articles (
            title TEXT,
            body TEXT,
            category TEXT,
            views INT,
            embedding FLOAT16_VECTOR
        )
    """)
    client.use_table("articles")

    client.store([
        {
            "title": "Rust-powered local analytics",
            "body": "A columnar embedded database for fast SQL and search.",
            "category": "database",
            "views": 4200,
            "embedding": [0.10, 0.82, 0.20],
        },
        {
            "title": "Hybrid retrieval for RAG",
            "body": "Combine full-text recall, SQL filters, and semantic vector ranking.",
            "category": "ai",
            "views": 6100,
            "embedding": [0.16, 0.74, 0.58],
        },
        {
            "title": "SQLite migration notes",
            "body": "Move local applications to an analytical embedded store.",
            "category": "database",
            "views": 2600,
            "embedding": [0.80, 0.12, 0.10],
        },
    ])

    client.execute("CREATE FTS INDEX ON articles(title, body)")

    # FTS recall + structured SQL guardrails + pgvector-style semantic rerank.
    df = client.execute("""
        SELECT
            title,
            category,
            views,
            cosine_distance(embedding, [0.12, 0.78, 0.25]) AS semantic_dist
        FROM articles
        WHERE MATCH('database')
          AND category = 'database'
          AND views > 3000
        ORDER BY semantic_dist
        LIMIT 5
    """).to_pandas()

    print(df)

ApexBase gives you pgvector-style semantic search, SQL filters, and full-text search in the same embedded database file. It is the kind of stack you would otherwise assemble from SQLite/DuckDB + FTS + pgvector, but without a server process or a separate search/vector service; results still convert directly to Pandas, Polars, or Arrow.

Performance At A Glance

Latest local snapshot: ApexBase 1.19.0, 200k-row tabular dataset, 200k-vector dataset, Apple arm, Python 3.12.

Benchmarks are workload-sensitive. The default benchmark command tracks this public scoreboard; extended diagnostics live in benchmarks/bench_vs_sqlite_duckdb_extended.py. See the full reproducible setup in the Performance documentation.

Documentation

Start here: https://birchkwok.github.io/ApexBase/

Interfaces

# Embedded Python
python -c "from apexbase import ApexClient; print(ApexClient)"

# PostgreSQL Wire + Arrow Flight together
apexbase-serve --dir ./data

# Individual protocol servers
apexbase-server --dir ./data --port 5432
apexbase-flight --dir ./data --port 50051

License

Apache-2.0