Dune Analytics Promises the Ultimate Querying Experience with DuneSQL

Dune Analytics is set to become the ultimate querying experience of blockchain data with its new query engine, DuneSQL. The platform, which announced the news in a blog post, says DuneSQL is tailored to the experience of querying on Dune Analytics. DuneSQL will be the only query engine on Dune eventually, and the company has shipped a tool to help wizards migrate their queries to DuneSQL, promising to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Introducing DuneSQL

DuneSQL is a query engine and SQL flavor designed specifically for Dune Analytics. The engine launched in alpha in December 2022 and became the most popular option for querying on Dune. DuneSQL is mostly based on Trino, an open-source query engine, and accesses exactly the same data as the Spark SQL engine.

Enhanced Features

The new query engine features many enhancements, including the ability to use other queries as views, querying byte arrays directly using 0x-encoding, and full wei-level precision calculations via UINT256 and INT256 data types. The company has promised to add more features, including using other queries as materialized views to unlock incredible speedups and new use cases, enabling the wizard community to contribute user-defined functions to DuneSQL, and allowing users to query their own data sources directly from Dune.

Sunsetting of Spark SQL

Dune Analytics has decided to sunset Spark SQL by July 2023 as all of its efforts will be put into DuneSQL. While there are syntax changes required to make Postgres and Spark SQL queries run on DuneSQL, the company says DuneSQL is faster and has better ergonomics. Dune Analytics has built a tool to help make query changes for wizards but acknowledges that an automated tool may only be able to translate some queries partially.

Apology for the Lack of Communication

Dune Analytics has admitted that rolling out Spark SQL and now DuneSQL has caused some confusion and frustration. The company has apologized for not communicating its long-term direction well enough but promised to provide more and clearer communication in the future.

Conclusion

DuneSQL is set to become the fastest, most powerful, and most convenient crypto data querying experience on the planet. With its enhanced features and a commitment to making the transition as smooth as possible for wizards, it promises to be the ultimate query engine. The company's decision to sunset Spark SQL and invest all of its efforts in DuneSQL is a testament to the confidence it has in the new query engine.