Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 27, 2026
Alternatives to arrow
Short answerThe closest alternatives to arrow on crates.io data are parquet (240K real downloads a day), datafusion (72.8K real downloads a day), polars (32.5K real downloads a day). Of the 3 we list, the most used is parquet, and 3 shipped a release in the last year. arrow itself gets 255,228 a day with 1,308 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs arrow | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| parquet Established | 239,896 | 0.94x | 898 | 1d | keyword "arrow" | side by side |
| datafusion Established | 72,805 | 0.29x | 451 | 20d | keyword "arrow" | compare |
| polars Established | 32,528 | 0.13x | 629 | 3mo | keyword "arrow" | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with arrow; read its description before you swap.
- More dependents means more answered questions and a smaller chance it disappears.
- Check the last release against how fast you need fixes. For arrow: is it still maintained?
Rules
Alternatives = tracked crates (top 1000 by downloads) that share a specific crates.io category (2 points each) or keyword (3 points each) with arrow, most similar first; its own parts (same name prefix) and crates it depends on or that depend on it are left out, because those are companions, not substitutes. Real downloads = quiet-day median, crates.io data Oct 27, 2026. Built when we find 3 or more.
Up next
What these download numbers really meanWhy are crates.io download counts inflated?Because a crates.io "download" is one fetch of a .crate file from the crates.io CDN , not a person. Every CI run on a clean machine fetches again, every new version gets...Read it next →Also worth your time
- crates.io download count: 80% of ours arrived with a new versionThe study behind this method (in This Week in Rust)
- Rust Data Weekly, Oct 17 to Oct 23This week in Rust crate data: growth and suspicious spikes
- How much of crates.io's top 1000 is release-day traffic?Crate Census: how much of the top 1,000 is release-day traffic
Art: Nicholas Roerich, Nag Lake (1925). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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