Open Table Format is a category of open standards for organizing and managing data in data lakehouses. The three dominant formats are Apache Iceberg (the emerging industry standard), Delta Lake (Databricks-originated), and Apache Hudi (upsert-optimized). These formats bring ACID transactions, schema evolution, time travel, and efficient query planning to data lake storage. Apache Iceberg defines a REST Catalog API that enables standardized catalog operations across implementations.
Apache Iceberg REST Catalog API
An open REST API specification for interacting with Apache Iceberg table catalogs. Provides standard operations for namespace management, table lifecycle, view management, and metadata operations.
Open-source storage framework with transaction log for ACID compliance on data lakes.
Lakehouse platform optimized for record-level upserts and incremental data processing.
Open, multi-modal catalog supporting Iceberg REST Catalog API, Hive Metastore, and Delta Sharing.
- Snapshot - Immutable point-in-time table state enabling time travel
- Manifest File - Avro file tracking data files with column-level statistics
- Catalog - Service mapping table names to metadata file locations
- REST Catalog - Standardized HTTP API for catalog operations
- Schema Evolution - Add/drop/rename columns without rewriting data
- Partition Evolution - Change partitioning strategy without rewrites
- ACID Transactions - Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability on object storage
- Data Lakehouse
- Open Table Format
- Apache Iceberg
- Delta Lake
- Apache Hudi
- ACID Transactions
- Schema Evolution
- Time Travel