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SQLite has been the most used DB for quite a while, by orders of magnitude. It's in every browser, on every phone, lots of desktop apps, .... Now there are a b

SQLite has been the most used DB for quite a while, by orders of magnitude. It's in every browser, on every phone, lots of desktop apps, .... Now there are a bunch of new companies that also want it to take over in the more traditional domains. So far I don't see a lot of uptake. It's still vastly inferior to the more entrenched databases. Both in terms of performance - especially under concurrency, and in available featureset.

biorach 2y ago
I think the point is that there are surprisingly many applications where the advantages outweigh the issues with concurrency and featureset.
- hruk 2y ago
  Indeed. I've found that as long as you store your database on a modern NVMe drive, you can easily push 5K+ write transactions per second with SQLite. I've worked at very large companies who received an order of magnitude fewer writes than that, and only during peak business hours.
colechristensen 2y ago
Over the years i have seen extraordinary many database instances doing exactly nothing down to a very small margin of error.
bux93 2y ago
I wonder if the Intel Management Engine, which famously runs MINIX on just about every Intel motherboard since 2008, uses a database.
- simondotau 2y ago
  But that would be merely one instance per machine. The number of truly distinct usages of SQLite is probably an order of magnitude greater than the number of machines in use.
robertlagrant 2y ago
> It's still vastly inferior to the more entrenched databases. Both in terms of performance - especially under concurrency, and in available featureset It's inferior at a use case it wasn't designed for. It's definitely superior for at a use case it was designed for.
throwaway2037 2y ago
> available featureset What features are missing from SQLite compared to "more entrenched databases"? Also, as I understand, it is the mostly widely deployed database in the world. They have a whole page about it.
- jdthedisciple 2y ago
  Stored Procedures I guess?
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    Fair point! I have been in technology for long enough that I have seen the stored proc pendulum swing both ways: "all stored procs" -> "no stored procs". A long time ago, a big problem with stored procs: They were hard / impossible to debug. However, I heard that most DBs have a debug interface now that regular devs can use to debug stored procs. I am curious if they are making a comeback!
    - jdthedisciple 2y ago
      Interesting, I've found SP's very elegant to handle and debugging them to me has been trivial so far with the help of a few unit/integration tests. And yea they're probably the only feature I really miss in SQLite so far.

biorach 2y ago

I think the point is that there are surprisingly many applications where the advantages outweigh the issues with concurrency and featureset.

hruk 2y ago
Indeed. I've found that as long as you store your database on a modern NVMe drive, you can easily push 5K+ write transactions per second with SQLite. I've worked at very large companies who received an order of magnitude fewer writes than that, and only during peak business hours.

colechristensen 2y ago

Over the years i have seen extraordinary many database instances doing exactly nothing down to a very small margin of error.

bux93 2y ago

I wonder if the Intel Management Engine, which famously runs MINIX on just about every Intel motherboard since 2008, uses a database.

simondotau 2y ago
But that would be merely one instance per machine. The number of truly distinct usages of SQLite is probably an order of magnitude greater than the number of machines in use.

robertlagrant 2y ago

> It's still vastly inferior to the more entrenched databases. Both in terms of performance - especially under concurrency, and in available featureset It's inferior at a use case it wasn't designed for. It's definitely superior for at a use case it was designed for.

throwaway2037 2y ago

> available featureset What features are missing from SQLite compared to "more entrenched databases"? Also, as I understand, it is the mostly widely deployed database in the world. They have a whole page about it.

jdthedisciple 2y ago
Stored Procedures I guess?
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  Fair point! I have been in technology for long enough that I have seen the stored proc pendulum swing both ways: "all stored procs" -> "no stored procs". A long time ago, a big problem with stored procs: They were hard / impossible to debug. However, I heard that most DBs have a debug interface now that regular devs can use to debug stored procs. I am curious if they are making a comeback!
  - jdthedisciple 2y ago
    Interesting, I've found SP's very elegant to handle and debugging them to me has been trivial so far with the help of a few unit/integration tests. And yea they're probably the only feature I really miss in SQLite so far.