Bauplan vs LavaLake

Bauplan is a data lakehouse for running Python and SQL pipelines directly on Apache Iceberg tables in a user's object storage, without managing servers or clusters. It uses serverless execution for Python pipelines and supports Python, SQL, and mixed workloads on the same tables. Data branches, isolated runs, atomic publishes, and rollback are intended to safeguard changes to production data. Bauplan also describes workflows where AI agents build pipelines, explore data, and manage a lakehouse through its MCP Server and Skills. Integrations listed include Airflow, Prefect, Dagster, Temporal, DBOS, Jupyter, Marimo, Streamlit, Snowflake, BigQuery, Metabase, Superset, Fivetran, and Airbyte. Bauplan says customer data stays in the customer's S3 bucket and offers PrivateLink or bring-your-own-cloud options. Its free Sandbox uses a shared environment where all data is public, which the company recommends for toy projects and demos rather than company data. Dedicated costs $700 a month after the first 14 days free and includes a dedicated private instance, data in the customer's S3, 10GB memory, and unlimited queries, users, and agents. Enterprise pricing is custom. Bauplan states that it is SOC 2 Type II compliant.

LavaLake combines a data warehouse and lakehouse with SQL, dashboards and AI agents for deployment in a customer’s own data center. Its assistant can find data, query metrics and create dashboards using the signed-in user’s permissions. An MCP server lets external agents use platform tools under those permissions. Read-only database sources include PostgreSQL, MySQL, MS SQL Server, SAP Business One and SAP S/4HANA. CSV and DATEV files can be imported, while PDF, Word and text documents can be searched. Hybrid search combines vector and keyword results using a locally run nomic-embed-text model with PostgreSQL and pgvector. The lakehouse uses Apache Iceberg on S3-compatible storage, Nessie as its versioned catalog and Trino as its query engine. Tableau and Power BI connect through a read-only HTTP feed that applies analyst identity and records data fetches in an audit chain. The maker says lakehouse data and local search stay on the customer’s network, while external AI providers receive conversation content and assistant tool results. Core is free with no time limit; paid plans start at €249/mo.