# DuckDB 2.0 alpha review finds faster S3 reads with workload limits

_Published Saturday, October 10, 2026 at 4:06 PM EDT · Infrastructure · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

![Why DuckDB 2.0 is faster | MotherDuck — Primary](https://motherduck-com-web-prod.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/assets/img/duckdb20_96b85ab729.png)

A hands-on review published by MotherDuck reports S3 data reads running 2x to 3x faster in the DuckDB 2.0 alpha without query changes. A separate thread pool downloads data ahead of processing workers, allowing network transfers and CPU work to proceed together. The feature is enabled by default.

The review also found that VARIANT, a data type that stores consistent JSON fields as separate columns, used 2.7 times less storage than JSON strings in its test. Results came from one M5 laptop and home internet. Tiny files showed no meaningful improvement, and casting VARIANT lists was slower than the JSON path in this alpha.

## Sources

- [motherduck.com](https://motherduck.com/blog/why-duckdb-20-is-faster/)

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Canonical: https://techandbusiness.org/newswire/hIJYa5vhWZRg7w4p9VYnlS
Published: 2026-10-10T20:06:27.318Z
Story chronology: 2026-10-10T18:08:49.000Z
Retrieved: 2026-10-10T23:07:08.982Z
Publisher: Tech & Business (techandbusiness.org)