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MongoDB into Apache Arrow with ADBC

MongoDB 7 + BI Connector 2.14 (MySQL 5.7.12 wire), read and written through adbcBridge — the ADBC driver that loads the database's ODBC driver — read-only on Linux, macOS arm64 and Windows x64. Everything below is the compatibility matrix's record for this row.

Status

Driver and connection string

ODBC driver

MySQL Connector/ODBC 9.4 (MySQL wire)

Wire

MySQL wire

adbcBridge

0.1.1 (release)

The connection string the matrix used, as the connection strings reference records it (MySQL wire); {drv} is the driver library or its name from odbcinst.ini, and the host, port and credentials are the test server's.

Driver={drv};Server=127.0.0.1;Port=13315;Database=adbc;User=adbc;NO_SSPS=1;{plugin_dir}

Python

import adbcbridge

# {drv}: the ODBC driver library (path), or its name from odbcinst.ini
conn = adbcbridge.connect(uri="Driver={drv};Server=127.0.0.1;Port=13315;Database=adbc;User=adbc;NO_SSPS=1;")
with conn.cursor() as cur:
    cur.execute("SELECT * FROM my_table")
    table = cur.fetch_arrow_table()      # pyarrow.Table

Polars and pandas

import polars as pl, pandas as pd

df = pl.read_database("SELECT * FROM my_table", connection=conn)   # Polars, Arrow-native
pdf = pd.read_sql("SELECT * FROM my_table", conn)                   # pandas 2.2+, ADBC connection

pip install adbcbridge brings the driver library; the MongoDB ODBC driver is installed the way its vendor documents, then named in Driver=. Rust, Go, C# and Java use the same connection string through their ADBC driver managers — see the docs.

What the matrix recorded

mongosqld presents MongoDB collections as SQL tables over the MySQL wire; a query engine on a DRDL schema: CREATE TABLE, INSERT and DROP TABLE answer 1105 … requires --writeMode, UPDATE/DELETE/TRUNCATE are not in the grammar at all, and --writeMode is refused together with a --schema path — so the two collections are loaded with mongosh and the entry runs the read side unchanged.

What this stack needed

• Driver quirk handled: SQLColumns segfaults inside Connector/ODBC on any table with a DECIMAL column -- mongosqld's information_schema reports NULL NUMERIC_PRECISION and the connector runs strtol() on it -- so GetObjects describes a zero-row SELECT instead (the existing no_sql_columns path the Flight SQL driver takes, keyed on SQL_DBMS_VER); server side: the handshake also segfaults without PLUGIN_DIR= (mysql_native_password), and COM_STMT_PREPARE is refused (NO_SSPS=1).
• No binary type; d is mapped timestamp by the entry's DRDL schema so it arrives as a midnight datetime (mongosqld does have a DATE SQL type: a SqlType: date column is described SQL_TYPE_DATE), decimals described as DECIMAL(65,20) so they read back as exact text, _id in every SELECT *; fetch 128k rows/s

Native ADBC driver, compared

MongoDB speaks the MySQL wire protocol, so the ADBC Driver Foundry's native MySQL ADBC driver (0.6.0) can be pointed at it too. On 2026-09-05 the same seven-step ADBC workload (connect, SELECT 1, DDL and inserts and a read, a 1,000-row adbc_ingest, table schema, catalog listing, read back) ran through both:

Where the native driver stops it is by design of that driver, not a defect of MongoDB; the full table for all 28 wire-compatible databases, with each first error, is in the note.

Read next

• Where the native PostgreSQL and MySQL ADBC drivers stop on wire-compatible databases
• What MySQL Connector/ODBC does to a DATETIME(6), and six other findings
• SQLColumns segfaults on a NULL NUMERIC_PRECISION from mongosqld