Hardcharger: a new open-source server for DuckDB 2.0 with the Chargewire protocol

GizmoData announced Hardcharger on October 21, 2026, a from-scratch Apache 2.0 server for DuckDB 2.0. It replaces Arrow Flight SQL with Chargewire, a protocol running SQL over HTTP/1.1 with Arrow IPC payloads, and bundles SSO, RBAC and audit features that were paid in GizmoSQL.

• Hardcharger is written from scratch rather than ported from GizmoSQL, under Apache 2.0 with no license keys
• Chargewire runs over HTTP/1.1 and TLS, with JSON control messages and Arrow IPC data
• The protocol ships an OpenAPI 3.1 description and a 282-test conformance suite
• Column-level RBAC, SSO, audit logging and a web UI are included for free