Building a serverless database replica with Carl Sverre

04/18/25 • 88 min

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Want to learn more SQLite? Check out my SQLite course: https://highperformancesqlite.com In this episode, Carl Sverre and I discuss why syncing everything is a bad idea and how his new project, Graft, makes edge-native, partially replicated databases possible. We dig into SQLite, object storage, transactional guarantees, and why Graft might be the foundation for serverless database replicas. SQLSync: https://sqlsync.dev Stop syncing everything blog post: https://sqlsync.dev/posts/stop-syncing-everything Graft: https://github.com/orbitinghail/graft Follow Carl: Twitter: https://twitter.com/carlsverre LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlsverre Website: https://carlsverre.com/ Follow Aaron: Twitter: https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarondfrancis Website: https://aaronfrancis.com - find articles, podcasts, courses, and more. Chapters: 00:00 - Intro and Carl’s controversial blog title 01:00 - Why “stop syncing everything” doesn't mean stop syncing 02:30 - The problem with full database syncs 03:20 - Quick recap of SQL Sync and multiplayer SQLite 04:45 - How SQL Sync works using physical replication 06:00 - The limitations that led to building Graft 09:00 - What is Graft? A high-level overview 16:30 - Syncing architecture: how Graft scales 18:00 - Graft's stateless design and Fly.io integration 20:00 - S3 compatibility and using Tigris as backend 22:00 - Latency tuning and express zone support 24:00 - Can Graft run locally or with Minio? 27:00 - Page store vs meta store in Graft 36:00 - Index-aware prefetching in SQLite 38:00 - Prefetching intelligence: Graft vs driver 40:00 - The benefits of Graft's architectural simplicity 48:00 - Three use cases: apps, web apps, and replicas 50:00 - Sync timing and perceived latency 59:00 - Replaying transactions vs logical conflict resolution 1:03:00 - What’s next for Graft and how to get involved 1:05:00 - Hacker News reception and blog post feedback 1:06:30 - Closing thoughts and where to find Carl

Previous Episode

Postgres on bare metal with the CEO of Prisma

Prisma started as a GraphQL backend and pivoted into one of the most widely used ORMs in the world. Now, they’ve launched Prisma Postgres, and CEO Søren Bramer Schmidt is here to break down the journey, the challenges, and the massive technical innovations behind it—including bare-metal servers, Firecracker microVMs, and unikernels. If you care about databases, performance, or scaling, this one’s for you.

Want to learn more Postgres? Check out my Postgres course: https://masteringpostgres.com.

Follow Søren:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sorenbs
GitHub: https://github.com/prisma/prisma
Prisma Postgres: https://www.prisma.io/postgres

Follow Aaron:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarondfrancis
Website: https://aaronfrancis.com - find articles, podcasts, courses, and more.

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
01:15 - The Origins of Prisma: From GraphQL to ORM
02:55 - Why Firebase & Parse Inspired Prisma
04:04 - The Pivot: From GraphQL to Prisma ORM
06:00 - Why They Abandoned Backend-as-a-Service
08:07 - The Open Source Business Model Debate
10:15 - The Challenges of Monetizing an ORM
12:42 - Building Prisma Accelerate & Pulse
14:55 - How Prisma Accelerate Optimizes Database Access
17:00 - Real-Time Database Updates with Prisma Pulse
20:03 - How Prisma Pulse Handles Change Data Capture (CDC)
23:15 - Users Wanted a Hosted Database (Even When Prisma Didn’t)
25:40 - Why Prisma Finally Launched Prisma Postgres
27:32 - Unikernels, Firecracker MicroVMs & Running Millions of Databases
31:10 - Bare Metal Servers vs. AWS: The Controversial Choice
34:40 - How Prisma Routes Queries for Low Latency
38:02 - Scaling, Cost Efficiency & Performance Benefits
42:10 - The Prisma Postgres Roadmap & Future Features
45:30 - Why Prisma is Competing with AWS & The Big Cloud Players
48:05 - Final Thoughts & Where to Learn More