SQLite as Your Server Database: WAL Mode, PRAGMA Tuning, and Why Litestream Changes Everything for Solo Founders

--- title : " SQLite as Your Server Database: WAL Mode, PRAGMA Tuning, and Litestream Replication" published : true description : " A hands-on guide to running SQLite in production with WAL mode, seven critical PRAGMAs, single-writer discipline, and Litestream backup — with benchmarks showing 2-5x read performance over Postgres." tags : architecture, backend, cloud, mobile canonical_url : https://mvpfactory.co/blog/sqlite-server-database-wal-pragma-litestream --- ## What We Are Building By the end of this tutorial, you will have a production-ready SQLite setup for a read-heavy mobile backend: WAL mode enabled, seven PRAGMAs tuned, a single-writer connection pattern implemented, and Litestream replicating your data to S3. This configuration handles 5,000–10,000 requests/second on a $20/month VPS. Let me show you a pattern I use in every early-stage project. ## Prerequisites - A Linux VPS (any provider — Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Fly.io) - Node.js 18+ with `better-sqlite3` - Litestream inst