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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Distributed SQLite on FoundationDB

Hello HN! I'm building mvsqlite, a distributed variant of SQLite with MVCC transactions, that runs on FoundationDB. It is a drop-in replacement that just needs an `LD_PRELOAD` for existing applications using SQLite. I made this because Blueboat (https://github.com/losfair/blueboat) needs a native SQL interface to persistent data. Apparently, just providing a transactional key-value store isn’t enough - it is more easy and efficient to build complex business logic on an SQL database, and it seems necessary to bring a self-hostable distributed SQL DB onto the platform.…

Distributed SQLite on FoundationDB is a drop-in replacement for SQLite that adds multi-version concurrency control and runs on FoundationDB. It requires only an `LD_PRELOAD` to work with existing SQLite applications.… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Distributed SQLite on FoundationDB launched in 2022; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1SO

    SQL OnLine - SQLite, DuckDB, PGLite, MariaDB / MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server. AI error analysis, User-friendly interface for Data Science. No registration for start, No DownLoad, No Install. | sql compiler, federated queries, temporal query federation, BI Analytics

    2025 · sqliteonline.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    pglite-fusion is a PostgreSQL extension that allows you to embed SQLite databases into your PostgreSQL tables by enabling the creation of columns with the `SQLITE` type. This means every row in the table can have an embedded SQLite database. In addition to the PostgreSQL `SQLITE` type, pglite-fusion provides the `query_sqlite`` function for querying SQLite databases and the `execute_sqlite` function for updating them. Additional functions are listed in the project’s README. The pglite-fusion extension is written in Rust using the pgrx framework [1]. ---- Implementation Details The PostgreSQL…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3DU

    Hi! As I was working on a side project, I noticed I wanted to use SQLite like a Document Database on the server. So I built Doculite. DocuLite lets you use SQLite like Firebase Firestore. It's written in Typescript and an adapter on top of sqlite3 and sqlite. Reasons: 1) Using an SQL Database meant having less flexibility and iterating slower. 2) Alternative, proven Document Databases only offered client/server support. 3) No network. Having SQLite server-side next to the application is extremely fast. 4) Replicating Firestore's API makes it easy to use. 5) Listeners and real-time…

    2023 · npmjs.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    I built a SQLite VFS in Rust that serves cold queries directly from S3 with sub-second performance, and often much faster. It’s called turbolite. It is experimental, buggy, and may corrupt data. I would not trust it with anything important yet. I wanted to explore whether object storage has gotten fast enough to support embedded databases over cloud storage. Filesystems reward tiny random reads and in-place mutation. S3 rewards fewer requests, bigger transfers, immutable objects, and aggressively parallel operations where bandwidth is often the real constraint. This was explicitly inspired…

    Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Hi HN, Today we’re launching PowerSync, a Postgres<>SQLite bi-directional sync engine that enables an offline-first app architecture. It currently supports Flutter, React Native and web (JavaScript) using Wasm SQLite in the browser, with more client SDKs on the way. Conrad and I (Ralf) have been working on our sync engine since 2009, originally as part of a full-stack app platform. That version of the system is still used in production worldwide and we’ve learnt a lot from its use cases and scaling. About a year ago we started on spinning off PowerSync as a standalone product that is…

    2023 · powersync.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    Hi HN, We have been building SyncLite, an open-source platform to simplify offline-first application development. If your application uses SQLite or DuckDB, SyncLite lets it continue using the local database as usual while synchronization happens in the background. For SQL-based applications, SyncLite records transactions into transactionally consistent .sqlog files using SQLite as an open replication format. A background consolidator replays those transactions, derives row-level CDC and schema changes, and applies them transactionally to destination databases like PostgreSQL. The same…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    I recently released v3 of Base, my SQLite editor for macOS. The goal of this app is to provide a comfortable native GUI for SQLite, without it turning into a massive IDE-style app. The coolest features are - That it can handle full altering of tables, which is quite finicky to do manually with SQLite. - It has a more detailed display of column constraints than most editors. Each constraint is shown as an icon if active, with full details available on clicking the icon. This update also adds support for attaching databases, which is a bit fiddly with macOS sandboxing. I'd love to hear any…

    2025 · menial.co.uk · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    We have been using graph DBs more and more at work. I found them painful to work with locally and decided to try and build something better.

    Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    I wrote a relational database management system (RDBMS) (sqlite clone) from scratch in pure Python.

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Recently there seem to be a surge in SQLite related projects. TeaTime is riding that wave... A couple of years ago I was intrigued by phiresky's post[0] about querying SQLite over HTTP. It made me think that if anyone can publish a database using GitHub Pages, I could probably build a frontend in which users can decide which database to query. TeaTime is like that - when you first visit it, you'll need to choose your database. Everyone can create additional databases[1]. TeaTime then queries it, and fetches files using an IPFS gateway (I'm looking into using Helia so that users are also…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    LBADD: An experimental, distributed SQL database. Contribute to tomarrell/lbadd development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Hi HN, James, Valter, Sam and the team from ElectricSQL here. We're really excited to be sharing ElectricSQL with you today. It's an open source, local-first sync layer that can be used to build reactive, realtime, offline-capable apps directly on Postgres with two way active-active sync to SQLite (including with WASM in the browser). Electric comprises a sync layer (built with Elixir) placed in front of your Postgres database and a type safe client that allows you to bidirectionally sync data from your Postgres to local SQLite databases. This sync is CRDT-based, resilient to conflicting…

    2023 · electric-sql.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    The lightweight, fault-tolerant database built on SQLite. Designed to keep your data highly available with minimal effort. - rqlite/rqlite

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Hello HN! I've found my SQL knowledge to be lacking, so I made a project that uses SQLite as a backend. As it is intended for self-hosting I aim to make it easy to set up and maintain. Getting it up & running takes no more than a few commands (bar setting up a proxy such as nginx, which is out of scope). I've set up a "demo" site at https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forum.agreper.com&#x2F; if you want to try out the UI.

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    We just launched Outerbase Studio, the open-source version of our core database offering. It works in your browser or as a desktop app and supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. What it does: • Connects to MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite databases. • Spin up local databases directly through the UI, even if you don’t have one running. • Manage and query your data in a lightweight, intuitive interface. • Completely open source. Why we built it: We wanted to share the core Outerbase experience with the developer community as a free, open-source tool. It’s simple, fast, and removes the barriers…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    The lightweight, fault-tolerant database built on SQLite. Designed to keep your data highly available with minimal effort. - Release v7.15.0 · rqlite/rqlite

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    I just shipped the first public version of datasette, a new tool for creating and publishing JSON APIs for SQLite databases. You can try out out right now at fivethirtyeight.datasettes.com, …

    2017 · simonwillison.net · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Query SQLite files in S3 using s3fs. Contribute to litements/s3sqlite development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    The lightweight, fault-tolerant database built on SQLite. Designed to keep your data highly available with minimal effort. - Release v4.0.0 · rqlite/rqlite

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    A totally proof-of-concept FoundationDB based network block device backend - dividuum/fdb-nbd

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Hey HN! We posted Rivet Actors here previously [1] as an open-source alternative to Cloudflare Durable Objects. Today we've released SQLite storage for actors (Apache 2.0). Every actor gets its own SQLite database. This means you can have millions of independent databases: one for each agent, tenant, user, or document. Useful for: - AI agents: per-agent DB for message history, state, embeddings - Multi-tenant SaaS: real per-tenant isolation, no RLS hacks - Collaborative documents: each document gets its own database with built-in multiplayer - Per-user databases: isolated, scales…

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Portable, Serverless & Lightweight SQLite-based Graph Database in Arturo - drkameleon/grafito

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    At JigsawStack.com, we are using Redis by Upstash to store and validate API keys among other datasets for speedy retrieval. As we scaled to more Asian markets and added replicated nodes, the cost started to shoot up while performance got a lot worse. I discovered hosting SQLite on Fly which was crazy fast & cheap with the full power of a relational database but difficult to use and scale without writing tons of code & devops. Then I found Turso as a managed service which is pretty cool but again got really expensive and had to manage a bunch of replications manually and pay per replications…

    2024 · dzero.dev · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    A SQLite VFS for remote databases via gRPC. Contribute to danthegoodman1/gRPSQLite development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

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