[SNACKeR99]

This is a great answer. The details REALLY matter. One of my best early tech success stories was rewriting a SQL query that took 27 hours to one that took ~5 seconds. This was running on a very large Oracle cluster. They had poured more and more money into hardware and licensing trying solve this. In the end, it was a matter of turning a cursor-based query into a set-based query.

[zimpenfish]

In some respects, I think the constraints of something like SQLite can focus people's attention on making things work properly rather than throwing hardware at the problem.

I can think of a couple of places I've worked where they had simple problems that could have been solved by some thinking and coding but instead were solved* by more expensive hardware.

[bob1029]

This is precisely my favorite part of SQLite. The constraints (aka lack of features) is what makes it so compelling. We experienced some serious revelations going down this path. The biggest thing from a devops perspective is that you can push very consolidated releases. There is no need to install anything for SQLite to function.

For instance, we use .NET Core Self-Contained Deployments combined with SQLite. As a result, we ship a zip file containing the dotnet build artifacts to a blank windows or linux host and have a working application node within a matter of seconds. The databases will be created and migrated automatically by our application logic, and the host is automatically configured using OS interop mechanisms.

So, when you really look at it, the constraints imposed upon us by SQLite encouraged us to completely sidestep the containerization game. Our "container" is just a single platform-specific binary path that has all of its dependencies & data contained within.

Without SQLite, we would have to have some additional process for every environment that we stand up. This is where the container game starts to come in, and I feel like its a bandaid to a problem that could have been avoided so much further down in the stack (aka SQLite vs MySQL/SQLServer/Postgres). Sure, there are applications where you absolutely must use a hosted solution for one reason or another, but for many (most) others where you do not, it's really the only thing stopping you from having a single process/binary application distribution that is absolutely trivial to install and troubleshoot. You literally just zip up prod bin path and load it on a developer workstation to review damages. 100% of the information you need will be there every time. No trying to log into a SQL server or losing track of which trace folder is for what issue # and sql dump. It keeps things very well organized at all levels. We can just launch the production app with --console to see its exact state at the time of the copy operation and then attach debuggers, etc.

[mumblemumble]

The last time I reduced database server load by 70% by just spending a week tuning indexing strategies and ill-performing queries, nobody thanked me. Sure, a new database server costs way more than a week of my time, but that is completely beside the point.

The point is that I robbed someone of the chance to buy a shiny new computer.

[BFatts]

That's a fantastic point. Most people in technology these days look at a problem and immediately think things like "more hardware" or "cloud deployment" all to get scalability. Scalability can come in forms other than throwing lots of money at an issue... Oftentimes, money can be saved if one throws more intelligence at the problem. :)