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Google Cloud Lakehouse for Apache Iceberg
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What Google Cloud Lakehouse for Apache Iceberg is
Google Cloud Lakehouse for Apache Iceberg is a web service for managing and analyzing Apache Iceberg tables. It supports SQL analytics, ACID transactions and streaming ingestion, alongside a governance catalog. Its listed support spans both storage models and both table-format categories. Charges are divided among metadata storage, table management and metadata access. Metadata storage includes 1 GiB free per month; additional storage starts at $0.04 per GiB per month. Table management starts at $0.12 per DCU-hour and includes storage optimization, adaptive file sizing, automatic clustering, garbage collection and BigQuery metadata generation. The metadata access allowances are 5,000 free Class A operations and 50,000 free Class B operations per month. Catalog federation metadata refresh includes 0 to 5,001 operations free per account each month. The service is paid overall, with no free plan, and is available on the web. Google was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.
Who it suits
It suits teams working with Apache Iceberg tables that need SQL analytics, streaming ingestion, transactions and catalog governance. Its storage and metadata charges are listed separately.
What it does well
- Supports SQL analytics and ACID transactions
- Includes streaming ingestion and a governance catalog
- 1 GiB metadata storage free per month
- Table management includes clustering and garbage collection
What to know first
- No free plan
- Table management starts at $0.12 per DCU-hour
- Metadata storage beyond the free tier starts at $0.04 per GiB per month
Limits
The overall service has no free plan, although metadata storage includes 1 GiB per month. Metadata access has stated free operation allowances: 5,000 monthly Class A operations, 50,000 Class B operations, and 0 to 5,001 catalog federation metadata refresh operations per account.
Plans
| Plan | Billed and limits | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Metadata storage free tier | Free tier includes 1 GiB of metadata storage per month · 1 GiB metadata storage | On request |
| Metadata storage | Starting at $0.04 per GiB per month · 1 GiB free metadata storage included | On request |
| Table management | Starting at $0.12 per DCU-hour · Automatic table storage optimization · Adaptive file sizing · Automatic clustering · Garbage collection · BigQuery metadata generation | On request |
| Catalog federation metadata refresh | Above 5,001 operations per month per account · 0 to 5,001 operations free per month per account | On request |
| Metadata storage included tier | 1 GiB per month · Lakehouse runtime catalog metadata | Free |
| Metadata storage overage | per GiB per month · metadata beyond included 1 GiB | $0.04 a month |
| Lakehouse table management | per DCU-Hour · automatic file sizing · clustering · garbage collection · BigQuery metadata generation | $0.12 a month |
| Class B metadata access | per million operations above 50,001 · read · delete · getIamPolicy | $0.90 a month |
The first 8 of 9 plans, as cloud.google.com lists them, read 20 Sept 2026. The maker's own page has the final word. Every plan
Getting started
- Visit the Google Cloud Lakehouse for Apache Iceberg website.
- Access the offering on the web.
- Choose a metadata storage plan, which includes 1 GiB free per month.
- Consider table management, which starts at $0.12 per DCU-hour.
Verdict
Google Cloud Lakehouse for Apache Iceberg combines table management and analytics capabilities with a governance catalog. It is a paid web service, with listed free allowances for some metadata storage and access operations.
Questions
Is Google Cloud Lakehouse for Apache Iceberg free?
It is paid overall and has no free plan. Metadata storage includes 1 GiB free per month, and metadata access plans list free operation allowances.
How much does metadata storage cost?
The listed plan starts at $0.04 per GiB per month and includes 1 GiB of free metadata storage.
How much does table management cost?
It starts at $0.12 per DCU-hour.
What does table management include?
It includes automatic table storage optimization, adaptive file sizing, automatic clustering, garbage collection, and BigQuery metadata generation.
What capabilities does it provide?
Listed capabilities include SQL analytics, ACID transactions, streaming ingestion, and a governance catalog.
What platforms does it support?
It is available on the web.
Facts from Google Cloud Lakehouse for Apache Iceberg's own pages
- AI features
- BigQuery ObjectRefs combine structured Iceberg data with unstructured objects for multimodal, vector and graph analytics. · cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- API
- The Lakehouse API is a serverless, highly available metastore API exposing REST resources for catalogs and data-sharing objects. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Automated maintenance
- Lakehouse can automate file sizing, compaction, clustering, garbage collection, partitioning and history-based optimization. · cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- BigQuery analytics
- BigQuery supports vectorized execution, partition pruning, multi-statement transactions and SQL DDL/DML over Lakehouse Iceberg tables. · cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Company founding and headquarters
- Google says it was officially born in 1998 and moved its headquarters to Mountain View, California; LinkedIn lists Mountain View as headquarters. · about.google, 15 Oct 2026
- Company size
- LinkedIn lists Google as a public software-development company with more than 10,001 employees. · linkedin.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Compliance
- Google Cloud lists ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 27701, SOC 1/2/3, PCI DSS, FedRAMP, GDPR and HIPAA offerings or alignments. · cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Cross-cloud federation
- Preview federation can expose data cataloged in AWS Glue, Databricks Unity Catalog and Snowflake Horizon Catalog to BigQuery and Spark without moving the data. · cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Deployment model
- Lakehouse runtime catalog is fully managed and removes the need to operate a self-hosted Hive Metastore. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Developer documentation
- Google provides introductory tutorials, quickstarts, reference material, code samples, engine-specific guides and troubleshooting documentation. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Founded
- 1998 · cloud.google.com, 23 Sept 2026
- Governance
- Knowledge Catalog integration supports centralized governance policies, semantic search, lineage and quality checks across engines. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Headquarters
- Mountain View, California, United States · cloud.google.com, 23 Sept 2026
- Infrastructure as code
- The Google Terraform provider provisions Lakehouse runtime catalog resources, including Iceberg REST catalog endpoints. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Interoperability
- The Iceberg REST catalog provides read and write interoperability among BigQuery, Managed Service for Apache Spark, Spark, Flink, Trino and other compatible engines. · cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Legal entity
- Google Cloud's contracting-entity page identifies Google LLC for the United States and other uncovered locations. · cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- License
- The Apache Iceberg project is distributed under the Apache License 2.0; Google Cloud Lakehouse itself is a proprietary managed service. · github.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: API access
- The BigQuery tabledata.list method cannot retrieve rows directly from runtime-catalog tables. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: cost visibility
- BigQuery dry runs can report zero processed bytes for runtime-catalog queries even though the executed query incurs processing cost. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: orchestration and scheduling
- TrustRadius reviewers report that orchestration and scheduled-query workflows can be awkward and require practice. · trustradius.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: query performance
- Google warns that BigQuery queries over runtime-catalog tables may be slower than queries over standard BigQuery tables. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: support
- Gartner's displayed dislikes include frustration when working with Google support. · gartner.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: table operations
- The runtime catalog does not support table renaming, clustering, extract jobs, database views or Iceberg views. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
- Open REST interface
- The Iceberg endpoint implements the open-source Apache Iceberg REST Catalog API and supports credential vending for fine-grained access. · docs.cloud.google.com, 15 Oct 2026
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