Apache Gluten and Apache Polaris Become Top-Level Projects
Wilmington, DE – March 5, 2026 – The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the global home of open source software the world relies on, today announced that Apache®Gluten® and Apache Polaris™ have become Top-Level Projects (TLPs).
Apache Gluten is an open source middle-layer plugin designed to dramatically accelerate Apache Spark™ SQL and DataFrame workloads. It acts as a bridge, offloading compute-intensive tasks from the JVM-based Spark to high-performance native engines such as Velox or ClickHouse, with an extensible architecture designed to enable future integration with ASF projects like Apache DataFusion™.
Apache Polaris is an open source, fully-featured catalog for Apache Iceberg™. It implements Iceberg’s REST API, enabling seamless multi-engine interoperability across a wide range of platforms, including Apache Doris™, Apache Flink®, Apache Spark, Dremio® OSS, StarRocks, and Trino.
“This promotion to Top-Level Project status highlights the maturity of the Polaris community and its technology,” said Jean-Baptiste Onofré, PMC Chair. “Our community is excited to continue providing new levels of choice, flexibility, and control over data.”
Open source projects need healthy communities to thrive. The ASF provides projects with services and mentorship for building resilient and durable communities throughout their lifecycle. The Apache Incubator hosts incoming projects (called podlings) that want to enter The ASF and adopt The Apache Way.
About The Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is the global home for open source software, powering some of the world’s most ubiquitous software projects, including Apache Airflow, Apache Camel, Apache Cassandra, Apache Groovy, Apache HTTP Server, and Apache Kafka. Established in 1999, The ASF is at the forefront of open source innovation, setting industry standards to advance software for the public good. Learn more at https://apache.org.
The ASF’s annual Community Over Code event is where open source technologists convene to share best practices and use cases, forge critical relationships, and learn about advancements in their field. https://communityovercode.org/
© The Apache Software Foundation. “Apache” is a registered trademark or trademark of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Gluten is a registered trademark of The Apache Software Foundation.
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