Limbo

lastmod 2024-12-12created 2024-12-122 edits

SQLite completely rewritten from scratch in Rust

Features

• Limbo is an experimental project that reimplements SQLite in Rust, which provides memory safety
  • Started the libSQL project out of a love for SQLite's embedded nature combined with a desire for a more open development model
• Why SQLite was forked: new features can be integrated easily while keeping compatibility with existing code
  • Drawback: SQLite's test suite is proprietary and written in C, which makes evolving the code difficult
• A new approach
  • Ran into SQLite's limits while adding vector search
  • Exploring whether rewriting SQLite from scratch allows more aggressive feature additions while keeping compatibility
• Next steps
  • Turning Limbo into an official Turso project
  • Goal of building a new architecture that provides memory safety while keeping the same reliability as SQLite
• Challenging SQLite's reliability
  • Achieving high reliability through deterministic simulation testing (DST)
  • Working with Antithesis to use a system-level DST framework
• Current state
  • Fully asynchronous I/O: Limbo has a fully asynchronous design, solving the problems of SQLite's synchronous interface
  • Designed for WASM: designed with use in WASM environments in mind
  • Performance: as fast as or faster than SQLite in many workloads
  • Simplicity: provides a better user experience by removing features that matter less in modern environments
• More information
  • Limbo is available on GitHub under the MIT license
  • Invites anyone interested in building an embedded database that takes SQLite's promise to the next level

See also

• rust
• sqlite

Favorite site

• Github - tursodatabase/limbo
• Introducing Limbo: A complete rewrite of SQLite in Rust