Sqinn-Go is a Go (Golang) library for accessing SQLite databases without cgo. It uses Sqinn https://github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn under the hood. It starts Sqinn as a child process (os/exec) and communicates with Sqinn over stdin/stdout/stderr. The Sqinn child process then does the SQLite work.

If you want SQLite but do not want cgo, Sqinn-Go can be a solution.

Note

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Usage

go get -u github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn-go/v2

import (
	"fmt"
	"github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn-go/v2"
)

func main() {
	// Launch sqinn, close when done.
	sq := sqinn.MustLaunch(sqinn.Options{
		Db: ":memory:", // use a transient in-memory database
	})
	defer sq.Close()
	// Create a table, cleanup when done
	sq.MustExecSql("CREATE TABLE users (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL, name TEXT)")
	defer sq.MustExecSql("DROP TABLE users")
	// Insert users
	sq.MustExecParams("INSERT INTO users (id, name) VALUES (?, ?)", 3, 2, []sqinn.Value{
		sqinn.Int32Value(1), sqinn.StringValue("Alice"),
		sqinn.Int32Value(2), sqinn.StringValue("Bob"),
		sqinn.Int32Value(3), sqinn.StringValue("Carol"),
	})
	// Query users
	rows := sq.MustQueryRows(
		"SELECT id, name FROM users WHERE id >= ? ORDER BY id",
		[]sqinn.Value{sqinn.Int32Value(0)},      // query parameters
		[]byte{sqinn.ValInt32, sqinn.ValString}, // fetch id as int, name as string
	)
	for _, values := range rows {
		fmt.Printf("user id=%d, name=%s\n", values[0].Int32, values[1].String)
	}
	// Output:
	// user id=1, name=Alice
	// user id=2, name=Bob
	// user id=3, name=Carol
}

For usage examples, see examples directory.

Building

The library includes a prebuilt embedded build of sqinn for linux_amd64 and windows_amd64.

If you do not want to use a prebuilt sqinn binary, you can compile sqinn yourself. See https://github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn for instructions. You must then specify the path to sqinn like so:

sq := sqinn.MustLaunch(sqinn.Options{
	Sqinn: "/path/to/sqinn",
})

Pros and Cons

Advantages

• No need to have gcc installed on development machines.
• Go cross compilation works.
• Faster build speed than cgo (1s vs 3s for sample program).
• Smaller binary size than cgo (2MB vs 10MB for sample program).

Disadvantages

• No built-in connection pooling.
• Sqinn-Go is not a Golang database/sql Driver.
• Sqinn covers only a subset of SQLite's C APIs.

Performance

Performance tests show that, for many use-cases, Sqinn-Go performance is better than cgo solutions.

See https://github.com/cvilsmeier/go-sqlite-bench for details.

Testing

Sqinn-Go comes with a large set of automated unit tests. Follow these steps to execute all tests on linux/amd64 or windows/amd64:

Get and test Sqinn-Go

go mod init test
go get -v -u github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn-go/v2
go test github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn-go/v2

Check test coverage

go test github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn-go/v2 -coverprofile=cover.out
go tool cover -html=cover.out

Test coverage is ~ 90% (as of August 2025)

Discussion

Go without cgo

Sqinn-Go is Go without cgo, as it does not use cgo, nor does it depend on third-party cgo packages. However, Sqinn-Go has a runtime dependency on Sqinn, which is a program written in C. Sqinn has to be installed separately on each machine where a Sqinn-Go application is executing. For this to work, Sqinn has to be compiled for every target platform. As an alternative, pre-built Sqinn binaries for common platforms are included in sqinn-go or can be downloaded from the Sqinn releases page https://github.com/cvilsmeier/sqinn/releases.

No database/sql driver

Database/sql is Go's default abstraction layer for SQL databases. It is widely used and there are many third-party packages built on top of it. Sqinn-Go does not implement the database/sql interfaces. The reason is that the sql package provides low-level function calls to prepare statements, bind parameters, fetch column values, and so on. Sqinn could do that, too. But, since for every function call, Sqinn-Go has to make a inter-process communication request/response roundtrip to a sqinn child process, this would be very slow. Instead, Sqinn-Go provides higher-level Exec/Query interfaces that should be used in favor of low-level fine-grained functions.

Concurrency

Sqinn/Sqinn-Go performs well in non-concurrent as well as concurrent settings, as shown in the performance section. However, a single Sqinn instance is inherently single-threaded, requests are served one-after-another.

If you want true concurrency at the database level, you can spin up multiple Sqinn instances. You may even implement a connection pool. But be aware that when accessing a SQLite database concurrently, the dreaded SQLITE_BUSY error might occur. The PRAGMA busy_timeout might help to avoid SQLITE_BUSY errors.

Changelog

v2.1.0

• bind and scan functions for converting go types to sqinn values and back

v2.0.2

• better prebuilts (gzip and build constraints)

v2.0.1

• ValXy const is now byte (was untyped)

v2.0.0

• Major Version 2 (streaming protocol, less memory, faster)
• Include prebuilt sqinn v2.0.0 (SQLite v3.50.4 (2025-07-30))

v1.2.0 (2023-10-05)

• Added marshalling benchmark
• Removed 'pure Go' claim
• Removed travis build
• Added github workflow with sqinn v1.1.27
• Updated min. go version 1.19
• Updated samples

v1.1.2 (2021-05-27)

• Fixed negative int32 marshalling

v1.1.1 (2021-03-27)

• Added more docs for Values
• Added example for handling NULL values
• Added example for sqlite specialties

v1.1.0 (2020-06-14)

• Use IEEE 745 encoding for float64 values, needs sqinn v1.1.0 or higher.

v1.0.0 (2020-06-10)

• First version.