Show HN: SQLite Online – 11 years of solo development, 11K daily users

4 hours ago (sqliteonline.com)

Cool project. Congrats for keeping it up for so long!

Could you share some numbers like a ballpark of subscribers?

  • Thank you, unfortunately, almost zero.

    • It's weird you show the price in some currency I don't even know what it is (even if it says 10 dollars small next to it).

      Just show and charge 10 USD. You can localize that other currency (Rubles?) if GeoIP matches.

      1 reply →

    • Thanks for sharing. Still valuable for me in any interview if someone says they kept a service up for 11 years. Shows determination.

I get this message:

The site takes a long time to load: is your internet slow?

If you have an old version of the browser update to the latest or use the latest version of chrome.

Close all tabs with the site and reload the last one.

support: z@sqliteonline.com

I am really struggling to figure out what this is or how it provides value.

Edit:

This discussion isn't exactly what I was hoping for. I was looking for ways to better highlight the features or value proposition of this site. Not defenestrate it altogether.

E.g.: A simple modal that says "Welcome to SQLite Online! You can <core value proposition> with this tool." would have radically altered my initial perception.

  • As an educator I would've loved to have this last time I was teaching SQL.

    1: No install

    2: Ephermal (just reload if you've messed up?)

    3: Good syntax highlighting

    4: Visual UI to navigate the model

    Why to pay for it though? That's a harder nut to crack, the UI is quite nice compared to many I've seen so maybe sell as an addon for those that provider hosted databases, collaborative spaces or as a desktop app. No obvious slam dunks though.

  • Yup, I think it would be a big help if the home page ('/') was a landing page explaining who it's for and why, and why. Is this for students? For prototyping? For quick analysis? Sample data? Importing real data? Use cases are key.

    And then have a big hero button leading to the the actual tool ('/app' or '/playground' or whatever). Maybe preloaded with different sample data depending on the use case.

    Right now, being dumped into a complicated interface with zero explanation is very confusing. (None of this is to criticize the project itself, just to help identify it to the people who might find the most value in it!)

  • > You can <core value proposition>

    It may be difficult to briefly describe all the website’s capabilities right now, but the key features include:

      * Federated queries across external and internal data sources.
    
      * Using query history as a source for new requests.
    
      * Collaborative access to databases — both server and local, with structure synchronization.
    
      * Automatic chart generation based on queries.
    
      * And much more, including hidden features that are not yet easy to summarize.

  • For me: Try queries without the hassle of setting up a database. Learn SQL. Experiment. Etc.

    • I don't understand the people trying to convince others that this tool is useless by saying "just do it this way, duh!". It is useful, even from a rapid glimpse at the website.

      Be kind and sensible.

      2 replies →

  • It's clear that the tool is highly useful to the people who use it.

    That being said, I feel like I'm dumped into the playground without understanding what I am playing with. A few short paragraphs, examples, screenshots, explanations, ect, would go very far.

  • Agree with your edit saying that there should be a landing message that gives a quick overview. But with in a few moments I was able to see that you can create a database and then start inserting tables/records into it. Seems like a pretty good tool to learn how to create and manage a database without the hassle of having to download sqlite and start testing commands that might be new to you in the CLI

  • I would have loved this 25-years ago during university.

    Would have made homework (and just learning) significantly easier.

Great job and many kudos for the determination to maintain a tool for 11 years!

I thankfully have no use for the tool since I no longer have to code SQL - the world is a better place for it.

It raises the question how many more "bus tools"[1] are there? Tools maintained and developed by a single developer with whom, when hit by a bus, the tool would die.

[1] no offence meant but "bus developers" is the term I learnt, it seems a little cruel to speak of folks being hit by buses - is there something better nowadays?

The paid subscription lists this feature:

> No auto-renewal

That's not subscription.

  • I aim to make the product convenient and as straightforward as possible. It's better to extend its use when needed than to worry about when to stop.

  • Sure it is. A subscription's defining trait is continuity of access contingent on periodic renewal, whether manual or automatic. People subscribed to things way before online payments or even credit cards were common. A modern, if niche, example is Tarsnap.com. Once in a while, I get an email from Colin telling me to pay up if I don't want my backups deleted.

I'd highly suggest getting a designer, or somehow thinking with more of a product mindset? I fail to understand what it does quickly, which shouldn't happen to a potential customer.

  • No, please. Don't inflate the team to something that would need investors. It's cool that an alter-Web can exist without 10 person teams.

  • And what currency is it in? Seems so odd to not put it in dollars or euros.

    And FURTHERMORE, the $ sign is incorrectly to the right of the numbers. It should be $10. Personally, this shows such a lack of product thinking, and simply hacking away at a tool instead of delivering a service.

    • I mean, it does clearly say it's 1,000₽ which is Russian rubles. Why would the price be listed in dollars if it's not being collected in dollars?

Don't localise messages if you don't have anyone to proofread. Browsers have built in translation nowadays that users can activate if they need.

  • Could you please advise where the issue might be?

    • Not the parent, but I see that several messages related to buying a subscription are translated into the locale of my browser. In my language, it just feels a little amateurish. In other languages, perhaps it might contain something totally wrong.

      So it will be safer to just use languages you are comfortable with, like English and Russian. Especially on pages that concern money. :)

      1 reply →

  • Or use the latest llms for translation

    • The sufficiently-late LLM seems a bit like a true Scotsman. After your comment, the OP explained that they did, in fact, use an LLM for translation. No info about whether it was "the latest".