# apache/parquet-format

Apache Parquet Format

Repository: https://github.com/apache/parquet-format
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/parquet-format
Homepage: https://parquet.apache.org/
Language: Thrift
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: parquet, apache, parquet-format
Last push: 2026-08-19T11:32:55+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 84/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 56, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4467, "days_push": 14, "days_rel": 81, "gap_med": 224.0, "n_releases_24m": 3}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2555, forks 503 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:00.632955+00:00)

## What it is
The official specification repository for the Apache Parquet columnar data file format, including the Thrift definitions of the metadata structures needed to read and write Parquet files. It defines the format itself rather than providing an implementation, which live in language-specific projects like parquet-java.

## Use cases
- implement a parquet reader or writer in a new language
- understand the parquet file format specification
- generate thrift code for parquet metadata structures
- check how nested data is encoded in parquet
- verify compatibility of a parquet implementation against the spec

## When to choose
- you are building or validating a Parquet implementation and need the authoritative format spec
- you need the Thrift IDL definitions to generate metadata serialization code
- you want to understand Parquet encoding, compression, or nested data layout at the format level

## When to avoid
- you just want to read or write Parquet files in an application - use a language implementation like parquet-java, pyarrow, or parquet-rs instead
- you need a runnable library or CLI tool - this repository contains only specifications and Thrift definitions

## Facets
- artifact type: dataset
- maturity: stable
- function: serialization, compression, file-system, documentation
- domain: big-data, analytics, databases, files
- platform: cross-platform, jvm, python, cpp, rust, go
- tags: columnar-storage, file-format-specification, thrift, hadoop-ecosystem, data-lake, olap, data-engineering

## Member repositories
- apache/parquet-format (main) score 84

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:00.632955+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 2026-08-30T02:23:43.678692+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/apache/parquet-format (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:00.632955+00:00, sha b82cd77a9897)
  - homepage: https://parquet.apache.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:06:21.130711+00:00, sha 5d7913adb12e)
  - site_page: https://parquet.apache.org/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T10:06:21.167841+00:00, sha ffd29d8c787e)
  - site_page: https://parquet.apache.org/blog (fetched 2026-08-29T10:06:21.199737+00:00, sha 062c8b637316)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.