PRODUCT / Database
SQLite
SQLite is a product evaluated in our AI comparisons. Compare PostgreSQL and SQLite for your application. See architecture, concurrency, ops burden, and which one actually fits your workload.
DatabaseSee the related decision for pricing.VERIFIED
BEST FOR
Who this fits
SQLite is recommended when: EMBEDDED / LOCAL-FIRST / ZERO-OPS. In-process library, zero administration, single portable file; official guidance says ~100k hits/day sites work well.
LESS SUITABLE FOR
Who should look elsewhere
Less suitable if you match: CONCURRENT WRITERS / MULTI-BOX / EXTENSIONS — in that case PostgreSQL may be a better fit.
KEY CAPABILITIES
• A library linked into your app — no server process, no config, no users to manage. SQLite's own framing: it doesn't compete with client/server databases, it competes with fopen().
• Unlimited simultaneous readers, but exactly one writer per database at any moment; write transactions are usually milliseconds so writers queue — workable more often than people expect, but parallel writes are a no.
• Effectively zero: backup is copying a file, 'upgrade' is shipping a library version, and there's nothing to monitor — 'SQLite just works.'
• Up to 281 TB in a single file, and sqlite.org itself serves 400-500k HTTP requests/day on SQLite — but write-heavy, multi-server workloads outgrow it.
• Ubiquitous bindings, FTS5 full-text search, JSON support; forks like Turso/libSQL push it toward distributed edge use.