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Comment by kevinmgranger | Hacker News Reader

For most languages and frameworks, using Postgres as opposed to sqlite is barely a higher cost if you’ve got the ops skills. I’ve yet to see an app that straddled this local/web-scale line where SQLite was a better choice or Postgres wasn’t the obvious choice.

There isn’t some massive cost to using Postgres instead, is there some desktop divide I’m missing here?

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From: https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html

Appropriate Uses For SQLite:

SQLite is not directly comparable to client/server SQL database engines such as MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server since SQLite is trying to solve a different problem.

Client/server SQL database engines strive to implement a shared repository of enterprise data. They emphasize scalability, concurrency, centralization, and control. SQLite strives to provide local data storage for individual applications and devices. SQLite emphasizes economy, efficiency, reliability, independence, and simplicity.

SQLite does not compete with client/server databases. SQLite competes with fopen().

I like the way I recall someone (Richard Hipp?) putting it: SQLite is a file format.

SQLite is an efficient file format for relational data with excellent tooling.

Would you use Postgres for developing something like, say, iTunes? I’d think SQLite would be a much more “natural” fit there.

For an app developed with Postgres, you need a Postgres instance running as a prerequisite. Whereas with SQLite, you just need to use a small library, there is no server or daemon involved.

sqlite doesn't require a server, right? It's just "read the database file", whereas Postgres requires a running server as well as the client processes.

Granted, if your ops are at the stage where "run postgres myself" is a pain, using some managed DB (heroku?) probably makes more sense than sticking to the sqlite file, if only because you'll be paying for "real backups" and availability.

I can use SQLite for prototyping without db server.

It's a file or some in-memory buffer, I don't need docker or anything else to run some very simple unit/integration tests with the DB.

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