# citusdata/cstore_fdw

Columnar storage extension for Postgres built as a foreign data wrapper. Check out https://github.com/citusdata/citus for a modernized columnar storage implementation built as a table access method.

Repository: https://github.com/citusdata/cstore_fdw
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/cstore_fdw
Language: C
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: postgresql, compression, columnar-store, columnar-storage
Last push: 2021-03-08T08:37:44+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4535, "days_push": 2004, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1783, forks 169 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:35.874648+00:00)

## What it is
cstore_fdw is a PostgreSQL extension implementing a columnar store as a foreign data wrapper, inspired by the ORC format, designed for analytics workloads with batch loading. It is now superseded by the columnar table access method built into the Citus extension.

## Use cases
- store analytics tables in a columnar format in postgres
- compress large postgres tables 6x-10x for archival
- speed up analytical queries by reading only relevant columns
- batch-load event or log data into postgres for reporting
- reduce storage footprint of wide postgres tables

## When to choose
- you are on an older PostgreSQL version without the Citus columnar access method
- you need an ORC-inspired columnar format via foreign data wrapper
- you want proven 6x-10x compression for archival data

## When to avoid
- starting a new project - use Citus columnar instead
- you need streaming replication or easy pg_upgrade with columnar tables
- you need frequent single-row updates or deletes

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: database, compression
- domain: databases, analytics, big-data
- platform: self-hosted
- tags: postgresql-extension, columnar-storage, foreign-data-wrapper, orc-format, analytics, deprecated, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- citusdata/cstore_fdw (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:35.874648+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:24:18.493824+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/citusdata/cstore_fdw (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:35.874648+00:00, sha b6f02385a379)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.