SQLite

Production patterns for SQLite as a primary datastore on servers, mobile devices, and inside CLI tools. Defaults below assume SQLite 3.45+ (Debian stable, macOS 14, Ubuntu 24.04). Version-gated features are flagged.

When SQLite is the right call

SQLite is the best choice when:

• Single-node OLTP/OLAP up to ~1 TB with mostly read-heavy or modest write traffic (single-digit thousand writes/sec).
• You want zero operational overhead — no daemon, no network, one file plus a -wal + -shm sidecar.
• You want fork-safe local state in a CLI, agent, mobile app, Electron shell, or edge worker.
• Read replicas are acceptable for HA (Litestream, Turso, D1).