How it works
Turso is a rewrite of SQLite in Rust that keeps SQLite's file format and SQL and adds concurrent writes, vector and full-text search, encryption and sync. It can run inside an app as a local file, as a remote database in Turso Cloud, or both: with Turso Sync, reads and writes hit the local copy and changes are pushed to and pulled from the cloud, which suits offline-first apps.
Because each database is little more than a file, creating thousands is cheap, which suits a separate database per customer or per AI agent. Turso Cloud adds branching, point-in-time restore and scale to zero for idle databases. The team's older libSQL client, based on its earlier fork of SQLite, still has the widest ORM support (Drizzle, Prisma), and the new engine is far younger than SQLite itself.
Turso pros and cons
Pros
- SQLite compatibility, with hosting, sync and backups added
- Thousands of databases stay cheap, which suits per-tenant data
- Local copies make reads fast and let apps work offline
- Free plan covers 100 databases and 5 GB
Cons
- A much younger engine than SQLite or PostgreSQL
- Smaller ecosystem, and some ORMs still need the older libSQL client
- Queries across many tenant databases need extra work
When to use Turso
Pick it when
- A separate database for each user, customer or AI agent
- Apps already built on SQLite that need to go online
- Offline-first or edge apps that benefit from a local copy
Skip it when
- You want the mature PostgreSQL ecosystem and its extensions
Turso pricing
Free tier
Free plan with 100 databases, 5 GB and 500 million rows read a month. Paid plans from about $5.99 a month (Developer) and $29 a month (Scaler).
Turso pricing page (opens in a new tab)Approximate, checked September 2026.What the other tools cost
Turso vs the alternatives
Related terms
More in Backend platforms
Hosted databases