Apache Druid, an open-source distributed database for real-time analytics, has seen significant advancements in 2024 under Imply's stewardship, focusing on four strategic pillars: ecosystem expansion, analytics enhancement, performance optimization, and data protection. Imply launched Polaris, a fully managed cloud environment, to simplify the use of Druid by offering features like auto-scaling, seamless data ingestion, and real-time data visualization. The year was marked by over 1,348 commits and numerous product updates, including improvements in SQL compatibility, the development of a high-performance query engine named Dart, and enhanced security and governance features for Imply Polaris. As the company looks ahead to 2025, it plans to continue refining the Dart engine, introduce a Virtual Storage Fabric for unified storage management, and embed materialized views for faster query speeds, aiming to further reduce the total cost of ownership for its customers while enhancing the real-time data experience.