better-sqlite3

The fastest and simplest library for SQLite3 in Node.js.

• Full transaction support
• Geared for performance, efficiency, and safety
• Easy-to-use synchronous API (faster than an asynchronous API... yes, you read that correctly)
• Support for user-defined functions and aggregates
• 64-bit integer support (invisible until you need it)

How other libraries compare

	select 1 row  get()	select 100 rows   all()	select 100 rows iterate() 1-by-1	insert 1 row run()	insert 100 rows in a transaction
better-sqlite3	1x	1x	1x	1x	1x
sqlite and sqlite3	8.4x slower	3.7x slower	28.2x slower	3.6x slower	6.0x slower

You can verify these results by running the benchmark yourself. Both npm/sqlite and npm/sqlite3 have nearly identical performance because they both use the same engine.

Installation

npm install --save better-sqlite3

If you have trouble installing, check the troubleshooting guide.

Usage

const db = require('better-sqlite3')('foobar.db', options);

const row = db.prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE id=?').get(userId);
console.log(row.firstName, row.lastName, row.email);

Why should I use this instead of node-sqlite3?

• node-sqlite3 uses asynchronous APIs for tasks that are either CPU-bound or serialized. That's not only bad design, but it wastes tons of resources. It also causes mutex thrashing which has devastating effects on performance.
• node-sqlite3 exposes low-level (C language) memory management functions. better-sqlite3 does it the JavaScript way, allowing the garbage collector to worry about memory management.
• better-sqlite3 is simpler to use, and it provides nice utilities for some operations that are very difficult or impossible in node-sqlite3.
• better-sqlite3 is much faster than node-sqlite3 in most cases, and just as fast in all other cases.

When is this library not appropriate?

In most cases, if you're attempting something that cannot be reasonably accomplished with better-sqlite3, it probably cannot be reasonably accomplished with SQLite3 in general. For example, if you're executing queries that take one second to complete, and you expect to have many concurrent users executing those queries, no amount of asynchronicity will save you from SQLite3's serialized nature. Fortunately, SQLite3 is very very fast. With proper indexing, we've been able to achieve upward of 2000 queries per second with 5-way-joins in a 60 GB database, where each query was handling 5–50 kilobytes of real data.

If you have a performance problem, the most likely causes are inefficient queries, improper indexing, or a lack of WAL mode—not better-sqlite3 itself. However, there are some cases where better-sqlite3 could be inappropriate:

• If you expect a high volume of concurrent reads each returning hundreds of megabytes of data (i.e., videos)
• If you expect a high volume of concurrent writes (i.e., a social media site)
• If your database's size is near the terabyte range

For these situations, you should probably use a full-fledged RDBMS such as PostgreSQL.

Documentation

• API documentation
• Performance (also see benchmark results)
• 64-bit integer support
• SQLite3 compilation

License

MIT