Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 18, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Apache Polaris, the open source catalog for Apache Iceberg co-created by Dremio, has graduated to a top-level Apache Project, marking a defining milestone for open data lakehouse architectures. Now considered a self-governing, open-source software project that is managed by the Apache Software Foundation, Apache Polaris provides a community-driven, vendor-neutral catalog that enables multi-engine interoperability and eliminates lock-in to proprietary alternatives. Its graduation from incubation validates the strength of its contributor community, its adherence to the Apache Way, and its production-ready maturity. With broad adoption already underway, Polaris is positioned as the industry's de facto catalog standard for Apache Iceberg.
"Graduation proves that Apache Polaris has the community momentum, durability and technical maturity to be the standard REST-based metadata catalog for Apache Iceberg tables," said Rahim Bhojani, CTO at Dremio. "We co-created Polaris because organizations demanded an open alternative to proprietary catalogs like AWS Glue and Unity Catalog. As the data ecosystem evolves toward AI-native architectures, open and interoperable metadata is becoming essential infrastructure."
Since its initial creation, Polaris has attracted a growing base of contributors and users. Dremio remains one of the project's most active participants, helping shape its REST catalog APIs, security model, and enterprise-grade capabilities. As an open-source, fully-featured catalog for Apache Iceberg™, Apache Polaris implements Iceberg's REST API, enabling seamless multi-engine interoperability across a wide range of platforms, including Apache Doris™, Apache Flink®, Apache Spark™, Dremio® OSS, StarRocks, and Trino.
Dremio leverages Apache Polaris as the foundation of the Dremio Cloud Open Catalog and extends it with enterprise capabilities including fine-grained access controls, automatic data optimization, and maintenance. This enables organizations to scale and manage analytical environments with less operational overhead and provides unified metadata management, security, and automation for lakehouses to optimize performance.
"Apache Polaris graduating to a top-level project is a testament to the vibrant community, vendor-neutral governance, and production-ready maturity of the project," said Jean-Baptiste Onofré, Dremio Software Architect and member of the Apache Software Foundation. "The focus is always to grow the community by welcoming new contributors and users, and helping land new features that address emerging use cases."
Learn more at www.dremio.com.
About Dremio: Dremio is the data lakehouse platform built natively on Apache Iceberg, Polaris, and Arrow. Dremio co-created Apache Polaris and Apache Arrow, and is trusted by thousands of global enterprises including Shell, TD Bank, and Michelin. Learn more at www.dremio.com.
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