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Comment by jpalomaki | Hacker News Reader

Easier to setup if there's no external dependencies to install and maintain?

This is equally true of SQLite, so why call out NoSQL specifically? And which flavor NoSQL is it anyway :)

Genuine question, why does SQLite get so much hate? Is it because it's SQL, or it's embedded, or what? I've used it for a lot of projects where I have to move the server around a lot and it's super convenient

I don't know that it gets a lot of hate, it's just generally not considered to be an adequate production server database.

Huh? Not sure what you mean but it's not intended as a "server database". It is however used a lot in production as an embedded DB in applications. E.g. I've seen SQLite in lots of Android apps.

Right, that's what I mean.

Both Chrome and Firefox use it for storing history.

It's actually perfectly fine for many small server roles, as well.

SQLite is great! It's just that those of us using it with pleasure don't complain or feel the need to be vocal about how good it is :)

SQLite gets a lot of love when it's used for the right job.

It's not a replacement for a full-blown RDBMS. If you need a database for a multi-user application, you'll probably be better served by something like PostgreSQL. For single-user applications, however, it's quite fantastic.

I'm not the author but I'll attempt to clear up the confusion based on what I've read.

Total.js's specific usage of "embedded" in this case means it includes 3000 lines[1] of pure Javascript that embeds the entire db engine source code into the project.

As for SQLite... as far as I can tell with Googling, there is no port of SQLite's C code to pure Javascript code that's maintained with popular support. (I found an old 2014 project[2][3] but it doesn't appear to be up-to-date.) Yes, there is a Javascript API[4] to SQLite but that's different from the SQLite engine itself being converted to 100% Javascript.

That's the nuance of "embedded" in Total.js' context. Yes, SQLite is an embedded db but nosql.js is even "more embedded" than that.

That said, whether Total.js embedded js db engine is as high performance and error-free compared to SQLite is unknown.

[1] https://github.com/totaljs/framework/blob/master/nosql.js

[2] 100% Javascript translated from SQLite C source --> https://github.com/lovasoa/sql.js

[3] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15415076/sql-js-in-javasc...

[4] some Javascript driving a SQLite C Language compiled binary --> https://www.npmjs.com/package/sqlite3

Ok, that's a lot more interesting than just "links to leveldb"!

That's true of any embedded database.

All the big names in NoSQL have a server you need to install and maintain. In the SQL world as well, actually.

SQLite, LMDB and RocksDB are all popular and embedded. They're not really web-centric though so don't get as much exposure on HN and its ilk.

Edit: Sorry if I sound like "that guy," just offering up some names in case people aren't familiar with them.

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