IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

PGlite – Embeddable Postgres

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

The three most prevalent themes in the Hacker News discussion about PGLite are:

  1. Primary Use Case is Development Tools (Testing/CI): A significant portion of the discussion revolves around PGLite's value proposition for improving local development workflows, particularly unit and integration testing, by emulating a real PostgreSQL environment without the overhead of a separate server.

    • Quotation: One user stated, "I'm using it for past few months in production at CompoundingEdges. It's been great for allowing users to generate large amounts (100-300k records/day) of their own isolated data and automatically persist it to their local machine.... Test runs are 5x faster" (attributable to a synthesis of comments by tln and widenrun regarding testing speed and an early comment by samwillis mentioning Google Firebase and Prisma embedding it in CLIs). Another user summarized the benefit succinctly: "It feels like a sweet spot between in-memory SQLite and spinning up a full Postgres instance" (widenrun).

  2. Desire for Native/Cross-Platform Embeddability Beyond WebAssembly (WASM): While the initial deployment target is WASM for browser execution, many users expressed a strong desire to use the underlying C code (or WASM compilation outputs) as a native library in non-JavaScript runtimes (like Go, Rust, .NET) to avoid the complexity/limitations of WASM or to achieve better performance/integration.

    • Quotation: A user questioned the WASM-only approach: "but why WASM-only? Naively it seems like WASM-ification would be a 2nd step, after lib-ification." (mpweiher). Another user directly requested native integration: "I'd love to to use PGLite in a non-JavaScript runtime. For example, embed PGLite into my Go CLI with a WASM runtime and use PGLite as a replacement for SQLite." (bbkane).

  3. Comparison and Advantages over SQLite: Users frequently compared PGLite to SQLite, which is the established standard for embedded databases in many contexts (especially testing). The main perceived advantage of PGLite is providing PostgreSQL compatibility, which helps prevent potential deployment mismatches when moving to a real Postgres production server.

    • Quotation: A key advantage noted for testing was: "SQLite's type checking is far less strict than Postgres, which would not catch errors that would occur the real database due to type mismatch. Having something like this, that I can quickly spawn and know, I am getting exact behavior as prod database would be a lifesaver!" (t_mahmood). Another user summarized the trade-off: "I think they meant sqlite is often used in CI/CD testing environments as an alternative to running a client/server database in these environments... pglite could be a better fit than sqlite for ci/cd" (trillic and Fuzzwah summarizing the thread).

🚀 Project Ideas

Cross-Language Bindings Generator for Embedded DB Cores (e.g., PGLite/SQLite)

Summary

  • A tool that automates the creation of native language bindings (e.g., Go, .NET, Python, Rust) for existing C-based, embeddable database cores, moving beyond the current focus on WebAssembly (WASM) targets.
  • Core value proposition: Unlocking the heavily optimized, feature-rich PostgreSQL engine (or similar, like SQLite) in non-JavaScript/WASM native applications and CLIs without relying on containerization or complex FFI manual setup.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers using Go, Python, .NET, or Rust who need PostgreSQL compatibility locally (e.g., CLI tools, integration testing).
Core Feature Analyzes the C FFI layer being built for WASM compilation (libpglite) and generates idiomatic, safe Foreign Function Interface (FFI) wrappers compatible with target runtimes (e.g., cgo for Go, PyO3 for Python).
Tech Stack Rust (for parsing/generation, utilizing existing C/WASM infrastructure), or Python/Go wrappers for the generator itself. Relies heavily on the structure of existing libpglite C compilation efforts.
Difficulty High
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Why HN commenters would love it: Addresses the repeated desire for native library access beyond WASM/JS: "I'd love to to use PGLite in a non-JavaScript runtime. For example, embed PGLite into my Go CLI with a WASM runtime..." and "Is there any interest in "official" PGLite bindings to other languages?"
  • Potential for discussion or practical utility: Directly tackles the architectural debate around WASM vs. native libraries, providing a standardized path to native usage based on the hard work already done to librar-ify PostgreSQL.

Hosted PostgreSQL Extension Compilation Service

Summary

  • A service that streamlines the process of compiling PostgreSQL extensions (like PostGIS) specifically for the PGLite WASM target, handling dependencies and platform differences.
  • Core value proposition: Removing the barrier to entry for developers who require specific PostgreSQL extensions locally, bypassing complex local compilation environments required for WASM targets.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers using PGLite in web apps or CLIs who need specific, community-requested extensions like PostGIS.
Core Feature A web interface or API where users submit an extension name/source and receive a pre-compiled PGLite-compatible WASM blob, potentially stored in a shared extension catalog.
Tech Stack CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions runners), Cloud Infrastructure for storage, Rust/Emscripten toolchain management.
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Why HN commenters would love it: Directly addresses the explicit need and expressed hope for wider extension support: "Do you think you will have this extension pre-built for PGlite?" and "The hard work is done by PGlite and we use PGlite, it just enables PGlite to be accessible from everywhere."
  • Potential for discussion or practical utility: Could become the de-facto standard repository for PGLite extensions, fostering community contribution similar to how PostgreSQL extension repositories function.

CI/CD Database Snapshot Utility (Focusing on Speed/Isolation)

Summary

  • A specialized tool, potentially leveraging the new native/embedded nature of PGLite, designed specifically for CI environments to achieve near-instantaneous, transactional test isolation without Docker overhead.
  • Core value proposition: Providing the exact behavior of production PostgreSQL during testing (catching type errors like SQLite doesn't) at speeds significantly faster than Testcontainers or even fsync=off Postgres.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience DevOps engineers and backend developers running high-volume unit/integration tests where test suite iteration speed is critical.
Core Feature Supports pre-loading a state (like the commented pglite-schema.tgz approach) and provides a "checkpoint/rollback" system faster than standard database transactions, potentially using filesystem tmpfs or PGLite's snapshot/clone features explicitly optimized for speed.
Tech Stack Go or Python wrapper (for easy CI integration), leveraging the most performant non-WASM build of PGLite possible for native execution.
Difficulty Low/Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Why HN commenters would love it: Directly solves the critical pain point of slow CI/CD pipeline times: "Test runs are 5x faster" and "Spinning up a Docker container is too expensive with many tests."
  • Potential for discussion or practical utility: Benchmarking this utility against Dockerized Postgres performance for common testing patterns (setup/teardown) would generate significant engagement from the performance-conscious HN crowd.