Do you even need a database?

Article

• Argues many small apps don’t need a traditional database — files or SQLite suffice
• Benchmarks flat-file approaches (JSON, JSONL) against DB overhead
• Advocates for matching storage complexity to actual scale needs
• Stateless processing (e.g. PDF tools) often needs no persistence at all

Discussion

• Counter: you’ll eventually reinvent SQLite, poorly, by adding features to file storage
• Modern NVMe speeds make disk I/O near RAM speeds — startups overengineer storage from day 1
• SRE perspective: file-based storage is a onboarding and operational nightmare vs. standard DB
• SQLite praised as the pragmatic middle ground many developers eventually land on

Discuss on HN