Open Table Formats Explained: Iceberg vs. Delta vs. Hudi
Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg now share governance through catalog-coordinated commits, while metadata trees and transaction logs enable data skipping and time travel that cut query costs without sacrificing access to prior table versions. Interoperability features like Delta Lake UniForm and Unity Catalog let teams query the same underlying data natively as either format across engines like Spark and Trino, reducing vendor lock-in.
* Open table formats bring ACID transactions and schema evolution to data lakes; catalog-coordinated commits now let Delta Lake and Apache Iceberg share a single governance model. * Metadata trees and transaction logs enable data skipping and time travel, cutting query costs while keeping every prior table version reliably queryable. * Interoperability features like Delta Lake UniForm and Unity Catalog reduce vendor lock-in, letting teams query the same data natively as Delta Lake or Iceberg across Spark, Trino, and others.