SQLite Turns 20

There was a considerable SQLite thread less than a week ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23281994" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=23281994</a>.

I use SQLite frequently, often without thinking about it, but every once in a while I stand back and reflect on what an amazing piece of software it is. An RDBMS without a standalone database engine, delivering rock-solid performance, through exceptional code quality.<p>It scales unexpectedly well with large data sets, and the performance is way beyond what you would expect from a library (as opposed to a &#x27;real&#x27; database).<p>Hats off to the developers for creating and maintaining this amazing software.

One of the notable aspects of SQLite as a open source project is being open source but not open-contribution. drh put it in public domain, and doesn’t accept outside contributions to prevent it from being contaminated in any way. In an open source landscape where bazaar seems to have mostly won, SQLite remains one of the (last?) cathedral strongholds, and serves as a good reminder to aggressive contributors that open source maintainers don’t have to accept or even consider their PRs.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sqlite.org&#x2F;copyright.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sqlite.org&#x2F;copyright.html</a>

SQLite is a much younger project than I thought it was. Given the ubiquity, and capabilities that it provides, it&#x27;s impressive. On the other hand, Linux and Python are 29 years old.<p>Postgres, in its current form is ~23 years old. It started in the 1980s.

Literally the only criticisms I have is that sqlite is actually dynamically typed, not statically as you would expect! The schema only defines a field&#x27;s &quot;recommended&quot; type.<p>The documentation is very explicit about that[1], but it might still come unexpected, be forgotten, or, worst of all, cause problems that manifest much much later than if they would have at insertion. I remember one particular very ugly episode of that.<p>But that is all. As a whole, sqlite is amazing, rock solid, amazingly documented, and my immediate go-to if I need a (serverless) database. I don&#x27;t remember encountering a bug, in mission-critical software.

I heard the creator Richard Hipp speak at a conference a few years back and I absolutely loved listening to him . He is humble and seems a bit of a throwback compared to Silicon Valley tech moguls . May the genius and simplicity of SQLite shine on .

Where can you use SQLite?<p>Embedded Systems: Yes<p>Raspberry Pi : Yes<p>Mobile Apps. : Yes<p>Desktop Apps : Yes<p>Browsers : No<p>Servers : Yes<p>Supercomputers : Yes

Has anybody used Sqlite in a server side, production level capacity....<p>I know it works great on embeded cases, but how about server side with a decent user load?

I always love reading the comments section of an SQLite post to hear about all of the incredibly unique ways people are using it.

While doing small project sqlite is a very good tool. Thanks to sqlite team for making such a great software.

I believe the SQLite license is one of the greatest contributions in technology. Hope to see it on something game changing one day.

Again I love SQLite! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;zubairq&#x2F;pilot" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;zubairq&#x2F;pilot</a> Would not be possible without it! Why? SQLite works on the server, in Electron (barely), and purely client side on the browser, and is fast!

Cool to see a well-loved, gold standard of an open source project reach a milestone like this. That said, the few cherry picked commits on that page were not particularly interesting (atleast to me, not a db expert by any means), and the color coding is inscrutable.

I just checked and I have been using it since 2003...

What a noble piece of software.

I would be proud to make something a hundredth as useful and prevalent as SQLite.