Compare software

PostgreSQL vs SQLite: catalog facts
PostgreSQL	SQLite
Free Free and open source under the PostgreSQL Licence, a permissive licence similar to BSD and…	Free Free for any purpose; the source code is in the public domain.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hosted	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
Over 35 years of development with a strong reputation for reliability and correctness Extensible with custom types, index methods and procedural languages; PostGIS and pgvector are built on that	Whole database in a single file with no server to run Public-domain source code usable for any purpose
Default configuration is conservative and needs tuning for real workloads Built-in replication and failover require third-party tooling to become a full HA setup	Mainly a library; the bundled sqlite3 shell is command-line only No graphical browser included
Downloadable app, Self-hosted	Downloadable app
Open source	Closed source
License: PostgreSQL	License: Public domain
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 24, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.