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Comparison · Analytics
Cortex vs MotherDuck
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Cortex and MotherDuck — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Cortex vs MotherDuck: at a glance
What is Cortex?
Cortex 1.22 is on its fourth candidate, with sharded Parquet and years of deprecated flags removed.
Cortex 1.22.0 has been in release candidates since 12 September, reaching rc.3 on 6 October, and GitHub shows no final yet. The candidate adds sharded Parquet conversion and querying, resource-based query eviction that cancels the heaviest query when CPU or heap crosses a threshold, OCI Object Storage as a backend, and an active-series tracker per tenant. It also removes long-deprecated flags and config fields, some of which now stop Cortex from starting if left in place.
What is MotherDuck?
MotherDuck adds who-can-open controls to Dives and a SQL view of compute usage.
MotherDuck ships a weekly changelog. The November 12 release lets owners keep a Dive private or share it with roles, users or the whole organization, with matching GRANT READ ON DIVE commands; new Dives start private. Flight run access can now be managed in the UI, and Business plans can query hourly Duckling usage per user from MD_INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COMPUTE_USAGE. It lands a week after the redesign that put Agent Chat on the home screen.
Cortex vs MotherDuck: editorial side-by-side
Cortex
2.5ANALYTICS
Cortex 1.22 is on its fourth candidate, with sharded Parquet and years of deprecated flags removed.
◆ Current state
Cortex 1.22.0 has been in release candidates since 12 September, reaching rc.3 on 6 October, and GitHub shows no final yet. The candidate adds sharded Parquet conversion and querying, resource-based query eviction that cancels the heaviest query when CPU or heap crosses a threshold, OCI Object Storage as a backend, and an active-series tracker per tenant. It also removes long-deprecated flags and config fields, some of which now stop Cortex from starting if left in place.
◆ Where it's heading
The storage arc toward Parquet continues: after 1.21 made Parquet a Store Gateway query mode, 1.22 shards files that exceed column limits. A second arc is protecting shared clusters from heavy tenants, through query eviction, resource-based throttling and concurrent data-byte limits on store gateways. The cleanup is the maturity arc from 1.21 carried further: no-op flags that were tolerated for releases now fail at startup.
◆ Prediction
1.22.0 final should follow rc.3, which added only two fixes. Operators should expect upgrade failures from leftover deprecated flags, and the release notes tell them to grep runtime configs before upgrading.
MotherDuck
6.3ANALYTICS
MotherDuck adds who-can-open controls to Dives and a SQL view of compute usage.
◆ Current state
MotherDuck ships a weekly changelog. The November 12 release lets owners keep a Dive private or share it with roles, users or the whole organization, with matching GRANT READ ON DIVE commands; new Dives start private. Flight run access can now be managed in the UI, and Business plans can query hourly Duckling usage per user from MD_INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COMPUTE_USAGE. It lands a week after the redesign that put Agent Chat on the home screen.
◆ Where it's heading
The agent-first redesign made Dives and Flights the things people create; the releases since are about controlling who sees and runs them and what they cost. Governance that began with row- and column-level security in October now covers the agent-built objects too.
◆ Prediction
Next likely are finer controls on what Agent Chat can do on a user's behalf, or usage limits built on the new compute usage view, since both follow from the permissions and cost work in the last two releases.
Alternatives to Cortex and MotherDuck
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Cortex or MotherDuck.
Dovetail
Dovetail lets admins choose which connectors members can plug into the workspace.
Dagster
Dagster drops Python 3.10 and lets agents run schedules and sensors through MCP.
OpenHouse
OpenHouse adds time-zone-aware retention and per-database table caps.
Countly
Countly 25.03.59 defaults to Node 26, supports MongoDB 9 and tightens app scoping.
Kubecost
Kubecost cuts three 3.3.2 release candidates in two days, still without notes.
See all Cortex alternatives → · See all MotherDuck alternatives →
Recent activity from Cortex and MotherDuck
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoMotherDuckDive sharing controls, Flight access UI and compute usage in SQL
- 10d agoMotherDuckRedesigned UI puts Agent Chat on the home screen ⚡
- 21d agoMotherDuckRow-level security, Dive write-back and Flight run grants
- 28d agoMotherDuckImage inputs for prompt_jev() and Agent Chat that builds Dives
- 1mo agoMotherDuckAdmin API user listing, connection timeouts, prompt_jev() in EU
- 1mo agoCortex1.22 candidate 4 fixes tenant-deletion cleanup on GCS and Azure
- 1mo agoMotherDuckAI functions 50-60% cheaper; prompt_jev() billing begins
- 1mo agoCortex1.22 candidate 3 fixes the ingestion-delay histogram
- 1mo agoCortex1.22 candidate 2 adds three bug fixes
- 2mo agoCortex1.22 candidate: sharded Parquet, query eviction, OCI storage
- 5mo agoCortex1.21.1 candidate hardens gossip, ingestion and status pages
- 7mo agoCortex1.21.0-rc.1 fixes memberlist, tenant federation and a memory leak
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Cortex and MotherDuck?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. MotherDuck is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Cortex better than MotherDuck?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. MotherDuck is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Cortex?
Top Cortex alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Cortex alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/cortex-metrics for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to MotherDuck?
Top MotherDuck alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "MotherDuck alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/motherduck for the full list with editorial commentary on each.