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🦦 Pandas-style DataFrame library for Go — fluent API for filtering, grouping, sorting, and statistical analysis with type-safe operations and zero-copy typed slice access.

15 starsGo

Otters – A Pandas-style DataFrame library written in pure Go

by fahadishere·Feb 17, 2026·3 points·1 comment
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AI Analysis

●●SolidBig BrainNiche GemShip It

Pandas API in pure Go, but Polars and DuckDB already own this space.

Strengths
  • •Type-safe native Go types eliminate runtime guessing; zero-copy slice access is clever.
  • •Fluent chaining API feels idiomatic to Go; CSV inference + stat operations cover real workflows.
  • •Recent performance work (3x GroupBy, 2.7x Filter speedups) shows active optimization.
Weaknesses
  • •Polars (Rust), DuckDB (C++), and pandas dominate; Go data tooling is niche without distributed compute.
  • •Early-stage library (8 months old, 12 stars); production adoption risk and API stability concerns.
Target Audience

Go developers doing data analysis, ETL, and analytics without Python/JVM dependencies.

Similar To

Polars · DuckDB · Gota (Go DataFrame library)

Post Description

Hi HN — I’ve been building Otters, a DataFrame library for Go designed to bring a Pandas-like workflow to native Go without requiring Python, JVM, or external runtimes.

GitHub: https://github.com/datumbrain/otters

I started this because most Go DataFrame libraries I tried were either abandoned, hard to use, or didn’t feel idiomatic to Go. I wanted something that:

• works fully in-process (no cluster / Spark dependency)

• uses native Go types instead of generic interface blobs

• supports expressive chained operations

• stays readable and explicit like Go code should

• can scale to large datasets in memory pipelines

Design goals were:

• simplicity over magic

• type safety over dynamic guessing

• composability for real data pipelines

It’s still early but functional, and I’d genuinely appreciate feedback from people who’ve built data tooling or worked on columnar engines / query planners. Critiques welcome — API design, performance, architecture, anything.

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