lobste.rs is now running on SQLite
Simon Willison · Simon Willison · 2026-07-14
The Lobsters link-sharing community site completed a years-long migration from MariaDB to SQLite in July 2026, reporting lower CPU and memory usage and approximately halved VPS costs while running on a single server.
Extraction
Topics: sqlitedatabase-migrationrailsweb-infrastructureops
Claims
- Lobsters migrated from MariaDB to SQLite after planning since 2018, originally targeting PostgreSQL before pivoting to SQLite.
- The migration produced measurable improvements including lower CPU usage, lower memory usage, a snappier site, and approximately half the VPS cost.
- The Rails app now runs on a single VPS with a primary SQLite database of approximately 3.8GB alongside separate cache, queue, and rate-limiting databases.
- The migration PR spanned 188 files with 735 lines added and 593 lines removed across 30 commits.
Key quotes
SQLite seems to have passed with flying colors: cpu usage is down, memory usage is down, site seems to be snappier at least for me, 1/2 the vps cost once mariadb vps is taken down
This is a really useful case study, and a great reminder that you can get a whole lot done with a single server and SQLite in 2026.