Distributions

Spice.ai Enterprise provides multiple runtime distributions optimized for different workloads. All distributions are available in Enterprise; some are restricted or nightly-only in open source.

Supported Platforms

Distribution Availability

Inline SQL user-defined functions (from: sql) are available in every distribution. The HTTP and WebAssembly tiers are shipped pre-built in Cloud and Enterprise distributions; open source users can enable them by building locally with the http-functions and wasm-functions cargo features. See User-Defined Functions for the full reference.

Default Distribution

Includes all standard data connectors, embedded data accelerators (Spice Cayenne, DuckDB, SQLite), AI/ML model inference (LLMs, embeddings), and search capabilities (vector and BM-25 full-text search). From 2.4.0, the default Enterprise Linux binaries and the <version>-enterprise and <version>-enterprise-models images link jemalloc. See Allocator Variants to run against a different one.

Data-Only Distribution

Excludes AI/ML model support. Provides a smaller binary size and reduced attack surface for workloads that only need data federation and acceleration.

NAS Distribution

Adds SMB and NFS data connector support. Enterprise-only for production use.

GPU-Accelerated Distributions

Metal (macOS)

GPU-accelerated AI/ML inference on Apple Silicon.

CUDA (Linux)

CUDA GPU-accelerated model inference. Supported compute capabilities:

The AWS Marketplace ECR registry does not carry a CUDA image; it publishes the Default, models, and allocator variants (see Docker). Contact us for a CUDA-enabled Enterprise deployment.

Allocator Variants

Different memory allocators can significantly impact performance depending on workload characteristics.

The allocator is selected when the runtime is built, and a build links exactly one. The startup line of spiced names it, for example (allocator: jemalloc).

Contact us about an snmalloc or mimalloc build.

snmalloc

Optimized for concurrent workloads.

jemalloc

Allocator that may perform better for certain memory allocation patterns. From 2.4.0, the <version>-enterprise and <version>-enterprise-models images link jemalloc. For 2.2.1 to 2.3.x, the Marketplace images with the -jemalloc suffix carry it:

docker pull 709825985650.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/spice-ai/spiceai-enterprise-byol:2.3.5-enterprise-jemalloc

mimalloc

Microsoft's mimalloc allocator, designed for performance and security.

System Allocator

Uses the system's default allocator (glibc malloc on Linux). From 2.4.0, Marketplace images with the -sysalloc suffix carry it:

docker pull 709825985650.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/spice-ai/spiceai-enterprise-byol:2.4.1-enterprise-sysalloc

For 2.2.1 to 2.3.x, the <version>-enterprise and <version>-enterprise-models images link it.

Choosing a Distribution