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slug: / sidebar_position: 1 title: Introduction

Introduction

Apache Fluss (incubating) is a streaming storage system built for real-time analytics, serving as the real-time data layer for Lakehouse architectures.

This documentation covers the Fluss client libraries for Rust, Python, C++, and Java, which are developed in the fluss-rust repository (Java client is part of the main Fluss project). These clients allow you to:

• Create and manage databases, tables, and partitions
• Write data to log tables (append-only) and primary key tables (upsert/delete)
• Read data via log scanning and key lookups
• Integrate with the broader Fluss ecosystem including lakehouse snapshots

Prerequisites

You need a running Fluss cluster to use any of the client libraries. See the Deploying a Local Cluster guide to get started.

Key Concepts

• Log table — an append-only table (no primary key). Records are immutable once written. Use for event streams, logs, and audit trails.
  • Offset — the position of a record within a log table's bucket. Used to track reading progress. Start from EARLIEST_OFFSET to read all data, or resolve the current latest offset via list_offsets to only read new records.
• Primary key (PK) table — a table with a primary key. Supports upsert, delete, and point lookups.
• Bucket — the unit of parallelism within a table (similar to Kafka partitions). Each table has one or more buckets. Readers subscribe to individual buckets.
• Partition — a way to organize data by column values (e.g. by date or region). Each partition contains its own set of buckets. Partitions must be created explicitly before writing.

Client Overview

	Rust	Python	C++
Package	fluss-rs on crates.io	Build from source (PyO3)	Build from source (CMake)
Async runtime	Tokio	asyncio	Synchronous (Tokio runtime managed internally)
Data format	Arrow RecordBatch / GenericRow	PyArrow / Pandas / dict	Arrow RecordBatch / GenericRow
Log tables	Read + Write	Read + Write	Read + Write
Primary key tables	Upsert + Delete + Lookup	Upsert + Delete + Lookup	Upsert + Delete + Lookup
Partitioned tables	Read + Write	Read + Write	Read + Write

How This Guide Is Organised

The Clients section walks through installation, configuration, and working with each table type across all three languages. Code examples are shown side by side under Rust, Python, and C++ headings.

The Contributing guide covers building from source, running tests, and the release process for contributors.