Give q the open future it deserves.
q is one of the most productive languages ever built for time-series and analytical systems. PeachQ aims to make that power available freely, everywhere, while pairing it with a modern and extensible storage foundation.
The idea
A concise array language in memory. A path toward DuckDB storage, SQL, files and the wider data world.
Rayforce provides a powerful engine for interactive vector operations. DuckDB is the planned foundation for durable local storage, Parquet, extensions and connectivity to popular data technologies. Together they offer a practical route to a modern open q, but the storage work is still being shaped.
Why open
q should be usable in every environment: education, personal projects, open-source tools, commercial systems and cloud services.
An open implementation lets the community improve compatibility, build tooling, experiment with new ideas and ensure the language continues to evolve.
Background
PeachQ is currently led by Ryan Hamilton, founder of TimeStored. Since 2012, Ryan has created q tutorials, delivered kdb training and built tools for the q community.
He is the creator of QStudio, first released in 2013 and open sourced in 2025 after more than a decade of development. He also created Pulse, a real-time analytics platform supporting dozens of databases.
Before founding TimeStored, Ryan worked on kdb systems at UBS, Morgan Stanley and Citi. PeachQ builds on that experience but is intended to grow as a community-led open-source project.
Community first
The goal is larger than a compatible runtime. It is an open home for the language, drivers, editor integrations, documentation, tests and the ecosystem around them.
Built on open work.
PeachQ exists because a lot of people have already shared engines, parsers, databases, documentation, examples and hard-won q knowledge.
Rayforce
Thanks to Anton and the Rayforce contributors for the pure-C, in-memory vector engine PeachQ builds on. That work gives PeachQ a compact native core for arrays, tables and interactive evaluation.
DuckDB
Thanks to Hannes, Mark and the DuckDB community for the database engine we are building PeachQ's durable-data story around. DuckDB brings local analytics, Parquet, SQL and a serious storage ecosystem to the project.
The wider q community
Thanks to the people who have published q tutorials, examples, tools, documentation, tests, puzzles and libraries over the years. That includes past contributions from Charlie Skelton, Jo Shinonome, Stephen Taylor, András Dőtsch, Mark Street and many others. Some work is a direct input; much more is part of the shared foundation PeachQ learns from.