Turso
SQLite at the edge — embed databases close to your users with LibSQL
Turso takes SQLite and makes it work as a cloud database. Each database is a LibSQL file replicated across edge locations, so reads happen in single-digit milliseconds from wherever your users are. The per-database model is ideal for multi-tenant apps where each user or workspace gets their own isolated database.
The free tier gives you 9 GB of storage and 500 databases, which is enough to run a real SaaS with per-tenant data. The limitation is writes — all writes route through a single primary region, so write-heavy workloads will not benefit from the edge replication. If your app is read-heavy (dashboards, content sites, analytics), Turso is fast and cheap. If you need complex relational queries or heavy write throughput, Postgres on Neon or Supabase is a better foundation.
What's good
- SQLite simplicity with multi-region replication — sub-10ms reads from the nearest edge
- Free tier includes 9 GB storage and 500 databases — generous for per-tenant architectures
- Built on LibSQL (open-source fork of SQLite) — no proprietary lock-in on the data format
Watch out for
- Write operations must go through a primary region, adding latency for writes
- Ecosystem is young — fewer ORMs and tools have native Turso support compared to Postgres
- Not suited for heavy relational workloads that need JOINs across large tables
Alternatives
More in Databases
CockroachDB
Distributed SQL database that survives outages — Postgres-compatible with a generous free tier
MongoDB Atlas
Managed MongoDB in the cloud — document database with flexible schemas and a massive ecosystem
Neon
Serverless Postgres that scales to zero — you only pay when your database is actually being used