Lance Format project

license

Apache-2.0(OSI)

source

public

core features withheld

no

Apache-2.0 license body confirmed. The repository is public and unarchived and builds the whole product, and the README describes no paid tier, enterprise edition or license-gated build beside it, so source is public and the core ungated.

• https://lance.org/ recorded 2026-09-30

  Lance home page footer says "Lance is an open-source columnar format for multimodal AI. Apache-2.0."

• https://pypi.org/pypi/pylance/json recorded 2026-09-30

  PyPI metadata for pylance lists the classifier "License :: OSI Approved :: Apache Software License".

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lance-format/lance/main/LICENSE recorded 2026-09-30

  LICENSE file is the Apache-2.0 text: "Apache License" and "Version 2.0, January 2004" and "TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE, REPRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION".

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lance-format/lance/main/README.md recorded 2026-09-30

  README describes the format as "High-performance vector search, full-text search, random access, and feature engineering capabilities for the lakehouse." Searched the body for enterprise, paid tier, license key and cloud: none.

PyPI downloads of pylance drive this reading, since that package is the channel Lance declares for distribution. The figure therefore measures use of the format itself, not a proxy for it.

• https://pypistats.org/api/packages/pylance/recent recorded 2026-08-18

  last_month downloads = 4,157,433 for pylance

Lance is a columnar table format with its own vector and full-text indexes, zero-copy versioning and fast random access, readable by several analytical engines. It covers most of the storing-and-indexing job itself but ships no serving layer of its own, which keeps it one step below Vespa.

• https://lance.org/ recorded 2026-09-30

  Lance home page calls it "A file format, table format, and catalog spec for building a complete lakehouse on object storage" and lists Spark, Ray, PyTorch, Trino and DuckDB integrations.

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lance-format/lance/main/README.md recorded 2026-09-30

  README lists "Combine vector similarity search, full-text search (BM25), and SQL analytics on the same dataset with accelerated secondary indices." and "Automatic versioning with ACID transactions, time travel, tags, and branches".