Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

RocksDB VS SQLite

Compare RocksDB VS SQLite and see what are their differences

RocksDB logo RocksDB

A persistent key-value store for fast storage environments

SQLite logo SQLite

SQLite Home Page
  • RocksDB Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-03-12
  • SQLite Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21

RocksDB features and specs

  • High Performance
    RocksDB is designed for high throughput and low latency, making it suitable for performance-intensive applications. It optimizes for fast read and write operations, leveraging the LSM-tree data structure.
  • Rich Feature Set
    Includes advanced features like transactions, column families, data compression, and support for various storage engines, providing flexibility for developers to tailor it to their needs.
  • Scale and Efficiency
    Handles large volumes of data efficiently, making it suitable for applications that require significant scalability. It does this by using efficient memory and disk utilization techniques.
  • Embedded Database
    As an embedded database, it allows applications to integrate storage capabilities directly into their processes, reducing the overhead associated with connecting to a separate database service.
  • Strong Community and Support
    Developed by Facebook, RocksDB has a strong community with extensive documentation, regular updates, and active development, ensuring continuous improvement and support.

Possible disadvantages of RocksDB

  • Complex Configuration and Tuning
    RocksDB is highly configurable, which can be a double-edged sword. Properly tuning parameters for optimal performance can be complex and requires a deep understanding of the internals.
  • Limited SQL Support
    RocksDB is a key-value store and does not support SQL out of the box. This may require additional layers or integration with other systems like MySQL or MariaDB to provide SQL capabilities.
  • Memory Usage
    Performance optimizations often involve significant memory usage, which could be a limitation in environments where memory resources are constrained.
  • Lack of Built-in Replication
    While RocksDB itself does not provide built-in replication capabilities, external tools or custom solutions are necessary to achieve data replication and high availability.
  • Learning Curve
    The complexity and rich feature set of RocksDB come with a steep learning curve, especially for developers unfamiliar with LSM-tree data structures and database internals.

SQLite features and specs

  • Zero Configuration
    SQLite does not require any server setup or configuration, allowing for easy integration and deployment in applications.
  • Lightweight
    It is extremely lightweight, with a small footprint, making it ideal for embedded systems and mobile applications.
  • Self-Contained
    SQLite is self-contained, meaning it has minimal external dependencies, which simplifies its distribution and usage.
  • File-Based Storage
    Data is stored in a single file, which makes it easy to manage and transfer databases as simple files.
  • ACID Compliance
    SQLite supports Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability (ACID) properties, ensuring reliable transactions.
  • Cross-Platform
    SQLite is available on numerous platforms, including Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, and Android, providing a broad compatibility range.
  • Public Domain
    SQLite operates under the public domain, allowing for unrestricted use in commercial and non-commercial applications.

Possible disadvantages of SQLite

  • Limited Scalability
    SQLite is not designed to handle high levels of concurrency and large-scale databases, making it less suitable for large, high-traffic applications.
  • Write Performance
    Write operations can be slower compared to server-based databases, especially under heavy write loads.
  • Lack of Certain Features
    SQLite lacks some advanced features offered by other RDBMS like stored procedures, user-defined functions, and full-text search indexing.
  • Security
    As SQLite is file-based, it might lack some of the security features present in server-based databases, such as sophisticated access control.
  • Concurrency
    SQLite uses a locking mechanism to control access to the database, which can lead to contention and performance bottlenecks in highly concurrent environments.
  • Backup and Restore
    While it's straightforward to copy SQLite database files, it lacks the advanced backup and restore features found in more complex RDBMS.

Analysis of SQLite

Overall verdict

  • SQLite is an excellent choice for a variety of use cases, particularly where ease of use, scalability for smaller applications, and integration simplicity are prioritized. Its robust feature set and extensive community support make it a reliable option for many developers.

Why this product is good

  • SQLite is highly regarded for its efficiency, simplicity, and portability. It is a self-contained, serverless database engine that requires no configuration, making it easy to integrate into applications. Its zero-configuration system and minimal setup offer a lightweight solution that supports complex queries with ACID compliance. SQLite is also used widely due to its high reliability and performance, and it is included by default in several programming environments.

Recommended for

  • Small to medium-sized applications
  • Embedded devices and IoT applications
  • Mobile applications
  • Testing and prototyping
  • Internal or standalone tools and applications
  • Education and learning environments

RocksDB videos

How Online Backup works in MyRocks and RocksDB

More videos:

  • Review - RocksDB Meetup 2020 at Rockset
  • Review - TokuDB vs RocksDB

SQLite videos

SQLite | What, Why , Where

More videos:

  • Review - W20 PROG1442 3.3 UWP sqLite Review
  • Tutorial - How To Create SQLite Databases From Scratch For Beginners - Full Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to RocksDB and SQLite)
Databases
7 7%
93% 93
NoSQL Databases
10 10%
90% 90
Relational Databases
2 2%
98% 98
Key-Value Database
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

SQLite might be a bit more popular than RocksDB. We know about 18 links to it since March 2021 and only 13 links to RocksDB. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

RocksDB mentions (13)

  • Introducing Gridstore: Qdrant's Custom Key-Value Store
    When we started building Qdrant, we needed to pick something ready for the task. So we chose RocksDB as our embedded key-value store. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • The Home Server Journey - 4: Enter The Matrix
    One thing you should know is that the K8s architecture is optimized for stateless applications, which don't store changing information within themselves and whose output depend solely on input from the user or auxiliary processes. Conduit, on the contrary, is tightly coupled with its high-performance database, RocksDB, and has stateful behavior. That's why we need to take extra care by not replicating our process... - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • How to choose the right type of database
    RocksDB: A high-performance embedded database optimized for multi-core CPUs and fast storage like SSDs. Its use of a log-structured merge-tree (LSM tree) makes it suitable for applications requiring high throughput and efficient storage, such as streaming data processing. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Fast persistent recoverable log and key-value store
    [RocksDB](https://rocksdb.org/) isn’t a distributed storage system, fwiw. It’s an embedded KV engine similar to LevelDB, LMDB, or really sqlite (though that’s full SQL, not just KV). - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • The Hallucinated Rows Incident
    To output the top 3 rocks, our engine has to first store all the rocks in some sorted way. To do this, we of course picked RocksDB, an embedded lexicographically sorted key-value store, which acts as the sorting operation's persistent state. In our RocksDB state, the diffs are keyed by the value of weight, and since RocksDB is sorted, our stored diffs are automatically sorted by their weight. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
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SQLite mentions (18)

  • Can I have my Lightroom catalogue pointing at two sources...?
    Yes. A Lightroom catalog file is, after all, just a SQLite database. (Srsly, make a copy of your catalog file, rename it whatever.sqlite and use your favorite SQLite GUI to rip it open and look at the tables and fields). It's just storing the pathame to the RAW file for that file's record in the database. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Building a database to search Excel files
    I use visidata with a playback script I recorded to open the sheet to a specific Excel tab, add a column, save the sheet as a csv file. Then I have a sqlite script that takes the csv file and puts it in a database, partitioned by monthYear. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Saw this on my friends Snapchat story, this hurts my heart
    Use the most-used database in the world: https://sqlite.org/index.html. Source: over 2 years ago
  • "Managing" a SQLite Database with J (Part 2)
    With this in mind, I wrote a few versions of this post, but I hated them all. Then I realized that jodliterate PDF documents mostly do what I want. So, instead of rewriting MirrorXref.pdf, I will make a few comments about jodliterate group documents in general. If you're interested in using SQLite with J, download the self-contained GitHub files MirrorXref.ijs and MirrorXref.pdf and have a look. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • "Managing" a SQLite Database with J (Part 1)
    SQLite, by many estimates, is the most widely deployed SQL database system on Earth. It's everywhere. It's in your phone, your laptop, your cameras, your car, your cloud, and your breakfast cereal. SQLite's global triumph is a gratifying testament to the virtues of technical excellence and the philosophy of "less is more.". - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing RocksDB and SQLite, you can also consider the following products

Redis - Redis is an open source in-memory data structure project implementing a distributed, in-memory key-value database with optional durability.

PostgreSQL - PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source object-relational database system.

memcached - High-performance, distributed memory object caching system

MySQL - The world's most popular open source database

MongoDB - MongoDB (from "humongous") is a scalable, high-performance NoSQL database.

Microsoft SQL - Microsoft SQL is a best in class relational database management software that facilitates the database server to provide you a primary function to store and retrieve data.