Use R2 Data Catalog for Iceberg analytics and data pipelines on object storage. For transactional application queries, consider a database; for unstructured objects, use R2.

Distinguish the Iceberg REST catalog used by query engines from Cloudflare's control-plane API for catalog administration. Start with the workflow you need:

Task	Reference
Enable a catalog, discover connection values, and choose credentials	Configuration
Select administration or engine APIs	API selection
Choose a Python, Spark, or SQL workflow	Patterns
Diagnose authentication, maintenance, or client problems	Troubleshooting

Copy the actual Catalog URI and Warehouse name from the catalog detail page or Wrangler's enable output. Pass both to the selected engine; do not reconstruct them from an assumed bucket naming convention. Retrieve Manage catalogs before setup or permission changes.

Related workflows: Pipelines for ingest and R2 SQL for querying tables.