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What's new in ArrowFEBE

Feature-oriented release highlights for ArrowFEBE — the pure-native PostgreSQL ADBC driver that speaks the Frontend/Backend (FEBE) protocol v3 directly and streams Apache Arrow end-to-end (no libpq). This is the reader-friendly view; the full engineering detail (every fix, every internal change) lives in CHANGELOG.md.

Get it in one line — see the install guide:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arpe-io/adbc-drivers/main/install.sh \
  | sh -s -- arrowfebe --license ./arpeio_adbc.lic

RHEL 8 support, leaner defaults & binary hardening — September 2026 (v0.4.0)​

The shipped Linux driver now runs on RHEL 8 / Rocky 8 and every newer distro out of the box (self-contained, static OpenSSL). The default read batch size drops from 100,000 to 32,000 rows for a lighter memory footprint, and the release binaries drop a build-machine path leak with the Windows .dll now debug-strip-gated.

Hardened release binaries — August 2026 (v0.3.8)​

The published Linux and Windows binaries are stripped of internal symbols, toolchain strings, and build-machine paths, and every Linux artifact is gated in CI on being hardened. A supply-chain hardening pass with no runtime cost.

Refuse plaintext passwords & a safer cancel — August 2026 (v0.3.7)​

A new opt-in require_password_encryption option makes the driver refuse to send a cleartext or MD5 password over a transport that is neither TLS- nor GSS-encrypted, closing a MITM downgrade (off by default, libpq-compatible). This release also fixes a cross-thread use-after-free in cancel and completes the ADBC 1.1.0 statistics surface with GetStatisticNames.

Portable connection URIs — August 2026 (v0.3.6)​

Connect with a standard libpq-style URI on the ADBC uri option — postgresql://…, postgres://…, or the branded arrowfebe://… — so strings copied from psql or a DATABASE_URL just work. See Connection → URI.

A standalone driver you install by name — August 2026 (v0.3.5)​

ArrowFEBE is now an independently installable ADBC driver: one-line install of a checksum-verified binary, load by name (driver="arrowfebe"), and a reworked COPY-binary encoder that made bulk ingest ~2.2× faster.

Shared family environment & always-on licence — August 2026 (v0.3.6)​

The diagnostic env-var knobs moved to the shared ARPEIO_ADBC_* prefix, so one variable configures every Arpeio driver and traces compare directly across them. The licence gate is now always enforced, and exported symbols are restricted to the ADBC entrypoints. See Environment variables.

Real query cancellation & a self-contained Windows DLL — June 2026 (v0.2.2)​

AdbcConnectionCancel / AdbcStatementCancel now abort an in-flight query via an out-of-band PostgreSQL CancelRequest, and the Windows build ships as a self-contained DLL.

Integrated & Kerberos authentication — June 2026 (v0.2.0)​

Trusted/integrated auth with no username or password: POSIX Kerberos/GSSAPI on Linux/macOS and Windows SSPI, plus optional GSS transport encryption without TLS. Mutual authentication is always enforced. See Authentication.

PostGIS geospatial — June 2026 (v0.2.4)​

PostGIS geometry / geography columns read as interoperable GeoArrow / WKB — their EWKB wire bytes pass straight through as Arrow binary, with no server-side ST_AsBinary round-trip, and a clean no-op when PostGIS is absent. See Data types → Geospatial.

SCRAM channel binding — June 2026 (v0.1.4)​

SCRAM-SHA-256-PLUS channel binding (channel_binding=require) binds the auth exchange to the server certificate over TLS, defeating a MITM that proxies the SASL flow — even without full certificate verification.

Native NUMERIC, interval & richer types — June 2026 (v0.1.5)​

numeric decodes straight from PostgreSQL's binary layout into decimal128/decimal256 with no string detour — the headline differentiator over the upstream Apache PostgreSQL driver — plus native round-trips for interval, json/jsonb, inet/cidr/macaddr, and bit/varbit. See Data types.

The native FEBE engine — foundational (v0.1.0)​

From the start, ArrowFEBE speaks the PostgreSQL v3 Frontend/Backend protocol directly over TCP/TLS — no libpq, no ODBC. A COPY-binary fast path (~1.70× the upstream Apache PostgreSQL driver on a TPC-H SF10 lineitem extract), native bulk ingest via COPY FROM STDIN, and the full ADBC 1.1.0 surface.

For the complete, dated, technical history see CHANGELOG.md. To report an issue or request a licence, contact sales@arpe.io or visit https://www.arpe.io.