# Lobste.rs moved to SQLite

By Saurabh Kumar · TIL note, Jul 18, 2026 · Tags: databases, devops

Source: https://saurabh-kumar.com/til/1784376000/

[Lobste.rs moved to SQLite](https://lobste.rs/s/ko1ji1), and the [HN thread](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899847) had sharper lessons than the post itself:
- WAL checkpoints only run during "reader gaps." Keep reads/writes continuously overlapping and the WAL file grows unbounded, a DoS vector kgeist reproduced with short-lived reads/writes, not just long-lived readers as the docs imply.
- Writes are fully serialized, one fsync each, yet app-layer batching still gets 100k+ writes/sec.
- Plain rsync on a live .db file can silently corrupt it since it doesn't understand SQLite transactions. Use [sqlite3_rsync](https://sqlite.org/rsync.html) instead.
- The real weak point is schema migrations: treat SQLite like a KV store, or reach for CQRS, to keep the churn low.