sqlite is nice because it's so easy to use but it's a pig to optimize and isn't a complete sql (it lacks typing, foreign keys are not enforced, etc etc). despi

sqlite is nice because it's so easy to use but it's a pig to optimize and isn't a complete sql (it lacks typing, foreign keys are not enforced, etc etc). despite that i would (do!) use it for projects where you're storing data for one program (configuration, etc). but if the main functionality of your program is storing data then you are better with something a bit more comprehensive. to be honest, i would suggest postgres over mysql, but either will do. not only as these more feature-complete, but they are much easier to optimise. also, if you are using python, you might consider sqlalchemy. that can be used as an orm, but is really more like a very neat embedding of sql in python. and it will even let you define your database in python. i think it's very cool. but there's also a risk that you might end up confused about what is sqlalchemy, what is python, and what is sql. finally, python's documentation for calling sql is not that great. you'll probably end up wanting to read this document - http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0249/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0249/