[maxpert]

Disclaimer: I am author of Marmot https://github.com/maxpert/marmot so I will sound extremely bias.

I have been asked multiple times on why I chose SQLite and not Turso. I've always responded people that I don't trust an open-source project once it's backed by a VC firm. I've moved away from Redis to Val-Key for same reason, and we have seen the Redis train-wreck in slow-mo. I hope at no point in future Turso ever ends up in that state, but chances are pretty high. At this point the "compatible with SQLite" has become a marketing term IMO, we all know how easy it is to break compatibility here or SQLite to break compatibility.

[bawolff]

I find it crazy that people would ask you in that direction. I would wonder why anyone would chose Turso over SQLite.

SQLite is some of the most battle tested software in the world. Turso seems like relatively new software that is still a bit experimental.

You do not want your databases to be new or trendy. You want your databases to be solid as a rock.

[anentropic]

> I would wonder why anyone would chose Turso over SQLite

well, Turso adds features

otherwise yeah, there'd be no reason

[namibj]

Ok, `io_uring` (like NVMe but for IO commands from application to kernel) and DBSP (high-grade framework for differential (as in, based on Delta streams/diffs not full updates) compression of "incremental view maintenance", it can keep materialized views synchronously up-to-date with a cost proportional to just the diff (for most typical ones; certain queries can of course be doing things at an intermediate stage that blow up and collapse again right after)).

At least notably; not sure about the MVCC `BEGIN CONCURRENT`'s practical relevance though; I am just already familiar enough with the other two big ones to chime in without having to dive into what Turso does about them...

[bawolff]

> Ok, `io_uring` (like NVMe but for IO commands from application to kernel)

Are there benchmarks comparing turso with io_uring to sqlite (with other config the same)?

io_uring has the potential to be faster but its not garunteed. It might be the same, it might be slower, depending on how you use it. People bragging about the technology instead of the result of using the technology is a bit of a red flag.

[jauntywundrkind]

Sqlite had such a stellar stellar reputation, for so many excellent reasons.

I still find it absolutely freakish & abominable that people are so incredibly touchy & reflexively mean & vile to Turso. I've seen a couple Turso centric YouTube's recently and there are dozens and dozens of up votes for what just seems like the most petulant vacuous reflexive bitter viewed comments, dominating the comments. Sqlite deserves its honor, is amazing! Yes! But there's such a wild concentration of negativity about a sqlite compliant open source rust rewrite. None of it is technical. It's all just this extreme conservatism, this reflexive no, I don't trust it, fud fud fud fud.

(Can't find the worse example but https://youtu.be/CrIkUwo8FiY somewhat shows this)

I'm just so embarrassed having such low antagonistic peers dominating the conversation all the time. With zero moderation, zero maybe it's ok, just dialed 100% to no no no no. For fuck sake man. Everywhere I go it's not hackers, it's not possibility seekers, it's a radical alliance of people using fear uncertainty and doubt to cling to some past, refusing even possibility of different. It's so regular, so consistent, so tiresome and so useless.

What if this is better? What if you are wrong? What if there is some possibility of better? It just feels like all the air time is sucked up by these negative creeps, always, everywhere, all around, with these absurd vast pervading pessimisms that admit to no maybe possiblies, that see no tradeoffs, that are just convinced always for the worst. And it's just so popular! Is the plurality! How anti-hackerly a spirit is anti-possibility! The world deserves better than these endless drag-gards.

I'm obviously reacting strongly here. But I just want some God damned room left for maybe. The negative creeps never allow that: no no no no no, fear uncertainty & doubt endless & abundant, no possibility, just bad. I cannot stand the negative energy, I'm so sad the hackers have to put up with such absolutist shitty drains sucking all the energy from the room, everywhere, always. Sqlite somehow has such a strong anti-possibility anti-energy magnet around something so so good: what a shame, it deserves better, & iteration attempts deserve at least some excitement. Progress is possible, can be neat, and judging way too early & reflexively with empty comment is to be condemned, imho.

[rendaw]

I definitely feel this. So many "I made an alternative to X that fixes these issues, or is better in these ways" met with "Well X is fine for me, and I don't need those things, so why change?" These posts are obviously meant for adventurers, people looking to improve on the status quo, have some experimental budget left, etc.

Reading the repo, I'm not sure what it offers. It's still CGO for Go (edit: it's not, it's purego, but can that be used for SQLite too?), Rust already has `rusqlite`. It's beta, so it doesn't have stability, and 99% of why I and many other people choose SQLite is stability.

But they bluntly say you should use it instead of SQLite: "The next evolution of SQLite" (trademark ok?). This not only implies that SQLite has some significant design issues that merit a new version, but it also implies that they, not the SQLite author, are the ones who are capable of doing this. My guess is this is what's rubbing so many people the wrong way.

It's not being sold on its merits, and I think if they're going to make that sort of statement it's fair to make the standard somewhat high. If it's an AI-oriented database, sell it that way, not as an SQLite replacement.

I don't think uv had a negative reaction, because it had a really compelling case.

[tracker1]

The way I see it there are a few goals for Turso as opposed to SQLite...

One is to be more open to contribution, which is of arguable value for a pretty "complete" project.

Another is to be able to better support a client-server and distribution model for resilience over only in-process options, which is harder. This is while being file compatible with SQLite for the database itself.

Another aspect is multi-threaded support (mutli-read in particular), which is part of the impetus for rewriting in Rust over the fork, for what may well be a dramatic performance improvement.

Cloudflare and Turso as companies are both using SQLite's interfaces and structure at a core piece of their distributed database offerings... There's definitely different characteristics for use/scale if you're going that route. I've also found CockroachDB to be interesting along with the now deprecated RethinkDB's approach. That doesn't even get into the more prominent distributed cloud db options out there.

In the end they're all just different approaches to solving similar issues.

[HelloNurse]

If you think this discussion is antagonistic, you should see how antagonistic "entrepreneurs" and VCs become when they are in charge of open source projects. Risk aversion is good.

In this case, the familiar "rewrite it in Rust" MO has a special angle: the Turso feature list is such a terrifying collection of high-risk, low-performance, inferior, unlikely to be compatible, unproven and unnecessary departures from SQLite that a malicious embrace-and-extend business plan is a reasonable theory and reckless naivety is the best possible case.

[bawolff]

> What if this is better?

If it was actually better you would probably be describing how and why you think its better instead of complaining about "negativity".

[jauntywundrkind]

Pretty good vector processing built-in. Time series capabilities. Nice Change-Data-Capture table that I've used & loved. Rust which is easy as hell to embed. Underlying libsqlite is very useful too. The CLI has far better ergonomics than sqlite & good formatting. Async & concurrent writes. Backwards compatibility. Just so ragingly badass. Tries. Isn't narrow & conservative. Amazing test suite.

The discussion didn't seem to be about merits. It just simply seemed to be a bunch of pissy empty whining & loser statements that it wasn't even worth beginning to regard it at all, for dumb petulant reasons x y and z. Fuck that. Fine, I'm happy to sing some praises. But IMO there is a war against imagination & this loserly attitude is the omni present all pervading no value woeful forefront. This pox is everywhere, just no regard, no consideration at all, just out of hand disregard for ridiculous inconsiderate Fear Uncertainty and Doubt anti-reason, thought terminating no's.

Murderers of hacker spirit. Sure, come ask for better! Yes!! Please!!! Inquire & challenge. Push for actual meat (both ways). I saw none, I tried to give you some here. These empty vessels have just vapors of fear, boogiemen to conjure & scare with. No actual content or assessment. So weird to rally so hard against open source, just because it doesn't also hail from 2.5 decades ago. We need more than reflexivism. Or we are shite non hacker people of a low culture.

I complain about negativity because this is rotten & a stink. It's everywhere & so rarely is it of substance, talks to anything. I've tried to add some weight here, and most of what I've said feels basic but this gets bold: I think the weight of anti-possibility weighs heavier & has a bigger mantle to bear in its naysaying than speaking for. We should attune ourselves to consideration. The hacker spirit should favor the idea of possibility above rejection & discarding of potential.

[bawolff]

> Amazing test suite.

Lol, is that a joke.

Seesh.

[To be clear, i think sqlite is the hands down winner on this front, no contest. Does the Turso test suite qualify it to be used in safety critical applications? I don't think so].

To your other points - look if it works for you i'm not here to tell you you can't use it. However these features sound more trendy than useful. To me these sound like negatives. A bunch of extra features not related to being a relational database suggests they aren't concentrating on the core product. I dont know enough about their model for async & concurrent writes to really evaluate the cost/benefit, but both those features sound potentially really scary and of questionable value.

At the end of the day its just not a compelling pitch. It seems like trading reliability and stability for a bunch of meaningless bling.

Best of luck to them, but at this point yeah, sqlite sounds like a much better option to me.

[jauntywundrkind]

It's just so wild to me that people are so married to anti-features like this. That anti-interest do possesses the modern spirit, enraptures people so.

'i don't know what it is but I'm not interested and it's probably scarey' is not, imo, befitting the cultures I personally want to see. There's times and places for extreme conservatism, but generally I am far more here for progress, for trying for aspiring to better, and I thought that was so clearly what the hacker spirit was about.

[tracker1]

Have you seen the SQLite test suite? AFAIK, it's private/secret/closed. I think that is a part of the argument against SQLite.

[dgroshev]

It's pretty easy to get some hard data, it's an open source project. I went to https://github.com/tursodatabase/turso/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3A... and looked at the last few PRs:

https://github.com/tursodatabase/turso/pull/4824/files "some performance improvements", no new tests

https://github.com/tursodatabase/turso/pull/4820/ "fix wal checkpoint", one basic test

https://github.com/tursodatabase/turso/pull/4815/ "Optimizer: fix bugs, improve cost model", a lot of nontrivial logic, no new tests

https://github.com/tursodatabase/turso/pull/4814 "WAL auto truncation: increase epoch to prevent stale pages reuse", there's a new test with a comment "It is slightly fragile and can be removed if it will be unclear how to maintain it"

https://github.com/tursodatabase/turso/pull/4806/ "Busy snapshot bugfix" with two new tests with the same comments as 4814 (I guess they didn't fix the bug in one go?)

https://github.com/tursodatabase/turso/pull/4802/ "fix/translate: revert change that allowed index cursor with stale position to be read", fixes a data-corrupting bug, there's a regression test, good (although the original bug sounds like it should've been caught by a suite like the one SQLite has)

That's just a couple days worth of PRs.

This style of development does not inspire confidence. They develop features, sure. But I want my database to be rock-solid and completely covered by tests, not just move fast and break things. It's not FUD to just look at how they approach PRs.

[cmrdporcupine]

So then the follow-up question to that is:

How can we make sure that fundamental pieces of open source software that power the Internet can have funding, and that the people who write them can have comfortable lives working on the piece of software they love that so many people use?

I think you've described a real problem. But people turn to VC because there are few other ways to make funding happen.

[aranw]

Which SQLite Go library do you use? My biggest pain with using SQLite in Go is often the libraries and the reliance of CGO which is what puts me off using Turso

Edit: Looking at the go mod file I noticed github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3 which I think is a C wrapper library so I'm assuming you rely on CGO for compiling

[ncruces]

You have at least 2 alternatives that don't require CGO (disclosure, I made the second one):

https://pkg.go.dev/modernc.org/sqlite

https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/ncruces/go-sqlite3