Vendor Lock-In
Vendor lock-in is a situation where the cost, effort, or risk of switching away from a product is high enough that you stay even when you would rather leave. In data systems, it usually comes from proprietary formats, proprietary query languages, and egress fees.
How lock-in happens and how to avoid it
Lock-in in data infrastructure builds up quietly. Your data goes into a proprietary format only that vendor can read. Your queries are written in a proprietary language that does not transfer. And when you finally try to leave, egress fees charge you to take your own data out. Each of these raises the cost of switching.
The defenses are the mirror image. Store data in an open format like Parquet so any tool can read it. Use standard SQL so your queries transfer. Keep data on storage you own so there is no egress toll. None of this prevents you from using a vendor's product. It just means you can leave on your terms.
For infrastructure you expect to depend on for years, the question to ask early is simple: if I had to leave, what would it actually take.
How Arc handles Vendor Lock-In
Arc is built to be the opposite of lock-in. Open Parquet on your storage, standard SQL, and no egress fees because the data never lived in someone else's cloud. If Arc disappeared tomorrow, you still own every byte.
Arc is a high-performance columnar database. Open Parquet on storage you own, single Go binary, production-ready in 30 seconds.