Beyond Charts: Building Interactive Data Apps with MotherDuck Dives
2026/03/26What you'll learn
MotherDuck Dives let you build interactive data applications on top of your data warehouse without a separate frontend framework. This session walks through the full workflow, from querying data to publishing a shareable app.
What are Dives?
Dives are MotherDuck's built-in tool for creating interactive data apps. Instead of exporting query results to a separate BI tool, you write React components that pull data directly from your MotherDuck databases. The result is a live app your team can use without waiting on data engineering to hand something off.
Building your first Dive
The session covers how to get started: writing SQL queries in MotherDuck, wrapping results in React components, adding filters, drill-downs, and parameter controls. If you've used tools like Evidence or Streamlit, Dives will feel familiar, but everything runs inside MotherDuck itself.
Going beyond dashboards
Dives get more interesting once you move past standard charts. You can build calculators, data entry forms, custom reporting tools, internal apps that pull from multiple data sources. The talk shows real examples, like a customer health scoring tool and an operational monitoring setup, all backed by live SQL queries against your data warehouse.
Sharing and collaboration
Every Dive gets a shareable URL. You can publish them to your team, embed them, or keep them private for your own analysis. The session covers how sharing works and how to manage access for different audiences.
FAQS
What are MotherDuck Dives?
Dives are interactive data apps that run inside MotherDuck. You write React components that query your data warehouse in real time, and you get live apps with charts, tables, filters, and whatever other UI you want. They're a way to build something more useful than a static dashboard without spinning up a separate frontend.
What do I need to get started building a Dive?
You need a MotherDuck account and some familiarity with SQL. Dives use React for the frontend, but you don't need much React experience to get started. The patterns are simple enough that you can build useful apps with just SQL knowledge and basic component templates.
Can I share a Dive with people who don't use MotherDuck?
Yes. Every Dive has its own URL you can send to teammates or stakeholders. You control who has access, and viewers can interact with live data without writing SQL. You can also share the underlying data that powers a Dive with your organization.
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