Hi folks, During last week’s Iceberg Summit, I had several discussions regarding Apache Polaris. While users are generally satisfied with its features and performance, a recurring piece of feedback is that Polaris is difficult to get started with compared to other catalogs. Specific pain points include:
- The CLI is not intuitive. - There is no UI by default. - Multiple entities (catalogs, roles, etc.) must be created before the system is ready. - The Helm Chart is suitable for production but overkill for evaluation. - The Docker image is currently insufficient for quick starts. - The Getting Started guide and documentation are difficult to follow for new users. I previously started a proposal to address this (last year, "[PROPOSAL] User onboard..."). While we have since improved the CLI and introduced the Polaris Console, I believe we need to push further on this initiative. I have a follow-up proposal with two main points: 1. I will move forward with the Polaris Console release. 2. I propose creating a "standalone" Docker image (e.g. polaris-standalone). This would be a ready-to-use image including PostgreSQL, Polaris Server, Polaris Console, Polaris CLI, and potentially a notebook and query engine/Spark. The goal is to provide an easy-to-start image that works for small production environments and allows users to evolve their deployment incrementally. What are your thoughts? Regards, JB
