# wesm/feather

Feather: fast, interoperable binary data frame storage for Python, R, and more powered by Apache Arrow

Repository: https://github.com/wesm/feather
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/wesm-feather
Language: JavaScript
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2025-12-08T14:57:36+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 55/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 56, release rhythm 28, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3871, "days_push": 268, "days_rel": 268, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2757, forks 165 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:18.333412+00:00)

## What it is
Feather is a fast binary columnar file format for storing data frames, designed for efficient read/write and cross-language sharing between Python, R, and Julia. Development has moved into Apache Arrow; this package is now a thin wrapper around pyarrow.feather.

## Use cases
- read and write pandas data frames to disk quickly
- share data frames between Python and R
- fast serialization of tabular data
- store data frames in a columnar binary format
- exchange data between data analysis languages

## When to choose
- you need fast, language-agnostic data frame persistence
- you already use the pandas/R data ecosystem
- you want Arrow-backed columnar storage without heavier formats like Parquet

## When to avoid
- you need a general-purpose serialization format for non-tabular data
- you want actively developed features - use Apache Arrow directly
- you need compression-heavy long-term archival storage

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: serialization, file-system
- domain: data-science, files
- platform: python, cross-platform
- tags: data-frames, columnar-storage, apache-arrow, r, interoperability, data-engineering

## Member repositories
- wesm/feather (main) score 55

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:18.333412+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 2026-08-30T08:18:49.690276+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/wesm/feather (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:18.333412+00:00, sha dd964df0cef9)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.