Lobsters Migrates From MariaDB to SQLite — a 3.8GB Content DB on a Single VPS, 8 Years After the Plan Started

Simon Willison·medium signal

Community site Lobsters completed its long-planned database migration this past weekend — landing on SQLite rather than the PostgreSQL it originally targeted in 2018 — via a 735-line, 30-commit change led by Thomas Dziedzic. The whole site now runs on one VPS with a 3.8GB content DB plus separate cache (1.1GB), queue (218MB), and security (555MB) databases, and reports lower CPU, lower memory, and a snappier feel. For builders it's another concrete data point that 'boring' single-node SQLite scales to real production web apps far further than most assume.