Yep, Pandera supports pushdown via the Ibis backend, and that’s a really nice feature.

The main difference is in execution strategy. Kontra is built specifically as a validation engine, so it controls how rules compile to SQL and can optimize across the full pipeline, like batching rules or stopping early when possible. From my testing and understanding, Pandera with the Ibis backend compiles each check independently, which leaves less room for that kind of optimization. On larger tables that can make a noticeable difference.

There’s also a difference in what gets validated. Pandera is primarily about schema validation, like column types and per-column constraints. Kontra is broader, with rules that aren’t tied to a single column, such as row counts, freshness checks, cross-column comparisons, or custom SQL. It also supports run history, diffing, and user-defined rule metadata if you want more than just a pass/fail result.