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LumoSQL

lastmod 2025-06-03created 2025-06-031 edits

Project for extending SQLite features and providing alternative storage backends

Features

  • A project that adds security, privacy, performance, and instrumentation features to SQLite; it uses dynamic source combination rather than forking, making it easy to track changes against upstream
    • Does not replace SQLite directly; only the needed features can be applied to SQLite individually (good for gradual adoption/extension)
  • Pluggable backend engines: the default SQLite Btree, LMDB, and Berkeley DB backends are available, and new KVS (key-value storage) engines are planned to be added experimentally in the future
  • Introduces modern encryption techniques such as disk encryption (At-rest encryption), attribute-based encryption (ABE), and row-level encryption/security (granting decryption permission for only some rows per user)
    • Makes up for the limitations of existing SQLite and meets privacy requirements such as GDPR
  • Data integrity: provides row-level checksums (detecting/preventing corruption)
  • Powerful benchmarking tools
    • Runs combined benchmarks across various SQLite/LMDB/BDB versions and data size (DATASIZE) options, automatically storing results in a DB
    • Each benchmark run is permanently identified by a SHA3 hash, making data analysis and reproducibility easy
  • Flexible build system
    • Automates builds, combinations, and benchmarks based on the not-forking Perl tool, storing results in a DB
  • Developed as open source under the MIT license with support from the NLNet Foundation; supports Linux (x86, ARM, RISC-V) and BSD
  • Architectural significance and history
    • Previous alternative SQLite backends were mostly hard forks, but LumoSQL's key differentiators are being non-forked, dynamically combined, and multi-backend
    • Started from Howard Chu's 2013 experiment porting to LMDB; benchmarks have since shown that SQLite's own performance has also steadily improved
    • Going forward, expanding its role as a platform for experimenting with various KVS architectures, attempting upstream contributions, and experimenting with advanced security/integrity/privacy features

See also

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