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Sqlite3 WebAssembly

sqlite.org

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Re: Sqlite3 WebAssembly

#3
So after downloading from the official downloads page and stripping away all the mjs files and "bundler-friendly" files, a minimal sqlite wasm dependency will be about 1.3MB.

For an in-browser app, that seems a bit much but of course wasm runs in other places these days where it might make more sense.

Re: Sqlite3 WebAssembly

#4
Slight point of confusion: that page says:

> These components were initially released for public beta with version 3.40 and will tentatively be made API-stable with the 3.41 release, pending community feedback.

But the most recent release of SQLite is 3.46.1 (from 2024-08-13)

Presumably they are now "API-stable" but the page hasn't been updated yet.

It would be great if the SQLite team published an official npm package bundling the WASM version, could be a neat distribution mechanism for them. (UPDATE: They do, see replies to this post.)

My favourite version of SQLite-in-WASM remains the Pyodide variant, which has been around since long before the official SQLite implementation. If you use Pyodide you get a WASM SQLite for free as part of the Python standard library - I use that for https://lite.datasette.io/ and you can also try it out on https://pyodide.org/en/stable/console.html

    import sqlite3
    print(sqlite3.connect(':memory:').execute(
        'select sqlite_version()'
    ).fetchall())
That returns 3.39.0 from 2022-06-25 so Pyodide could do with a version bump. Looks like it inherits that version from emscripten: https://github.com/emscripten-core/emscripten/blob/main/tool...

Re: Sqlite3 WebAssembly

#5
i’ve been looking for a Tanstack Query style library that is backed by Sqlite (backed by OPFS or some other browser storage) and syncs with an API in the background. Does anything like that exist? i’ve seen ElectricSQL and other sync engines but they are a bit opinionated. I’m pretty new to local-first but i feel like the developer ergonomics are not quite there yet

Meanwhile for “local-only” it would be great to use sqlite in the browser + native file system API so that the db could be stored on the user’s file system and we wouldn’t have to worry about browser storage eviction. i think that could really open up a whole world of privacy preserving offline software delivered through the browser

Re: Sqlite3 WebAssembly

#7
post #3

So after downloading from the official downloads page and stripping away all the mjs files and "bundler-friendly" files, a minimal sqlite wasm dependency will be about 1.3MB. For an in-browser app, that seems a bit much but of course wasm runs in other places these days where it might make more sense.

The thing to keep in mind is that the WebAssembly sandbox model means that in theory the program (SqlLite in this case) can run wherever it makes sense to run it. That might mean running it locally or it might mean running on a central server or it might mean running nearby on the “edge”.

Re: Sqlite3 WebAssembly

#10
post #5

i’ve been looking for a Tanstack Query style library that is backed by Sqlite (backed by OPFS or some other browser storage) and syncs with an API in the background. Does anything like that exist? i’ve seen ElectricSQL and other sync engines but they are a bit opinionated. I’m pretty new to local-first but i feel like the developer ergonomics are not quite there yet Meanwhile for “local-only” it would be great to use…

ElectricSQL and friends seem to be the best option so far, but they all come with a lot of caveats. It feels like local-first is near, and it's so tantalizing, but I haven't seen anything that feels like it's done enough to build on just yet.
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