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Narwhals

Extremely lightweight and extensible compatibility layer between dataframe libraries!

  • Full API support: cuDF, Modin, pandas, Polars, PyArrow
  • Lazy-only support: Dask
  • Interchange-level support: Ibis, DuckDB, Vaex, anything else which implements the DataFrame Interchange Protocol

Seamlessly support all, without depending on any!

  • ✅ Just use a subset of the Polars API, no need to learn anything new
  • ✅ Zero dependencies, Narwhals only uses what the user passes in so your library can stay lightweight
  • ✅ Separate lazy and eager APIs, use expressions
  • ✅ Support pandas' complicated type system and index, without either getting in the way
  • ✅ 100% branch coverage, tested against pandas and Polars nightly builds
  • ✅ Negligible overhead, see overhead
  • ✅ Let your IDE help you thanks to full static typing, see typing
  • ✅ Perfect backwards compatibility policy, see stable api for how to opt-in

Who's this for?

Anyone wishing to write a library/application/service which consumes dataframes, and wishing to make it completely dataframe-agnostic.

Let's get started!