What separate DB server? I was talking about installing the RDBMS on localhost, right inside the server where your application runs. No other EC2 instance, no extra charges. Preferably connect to it over a Unix domain socket instead of TCP. That's the only way to compare SQLite performance with an RDBMS in an apples-to-apples way.

The point about operational overhead makes sense, though, and IMO it's the only point in this unnecessarily long article that's actually worth considering. I do have a couple of other apps running on SQLite, so I appreciate the simplicity.