You don't need CGO to use SQLite in your Go binary

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

At least not for most use cases. You can just use modernc.org/sqlite instead as your SQLite driver.

For people who aren’t in the Go know, “pure” Go programs are trivially easy to compile cross-platform to all the major platforms by default. You read that right - you can just go build a single Windows executable, Mac executable, and Linux executable on the same machine and just ship it:

# This can all happen on the same box!
export CGO_ENABLED=0 # no c cross-compilation please

export GOOS=linux
GOARCH=amd64 go build -o hello-linux-amd64 hello.go
GOARCH=arm64 go build -o hello-linux-arm64 hello.go

export GOOS=darwin   # aka mac
GOARCH=amd64 go build -o hello-darwin-amd64 hello.go
GOARCH=arm64 go build -o hello-darwin-arm64 hello.go

export GOOS=windows
GOARCH=amd64 go build -o hello-windows-amd64.exe hello.go
GOARCH=arm64 go build -o hello-windows-arm64.exe hello.go

This was the real reason I chose Go over Python for tsk, my instant-search Finnish to English pocket dictionary. I wanted to be able to give Windows users a single .exe they could just run and have work out of the box.

SQLite is learnable

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This is a response to pid1.call’s “Siren Call of SQlite on the Server”, which itself is a response to articles like Wesley Aptekar-Cassels’s “Consider SQLite” espousing SQLite as a server-side technology. Cards on the table, I both love SQLite and think pid1 has the more correct take here.

When I decided on a dime after college to move countries and be with my wife, part of the package deal was that I had to throw away my dreams of easing into the software industry by resting on the laurels of my strong, but not MIT-level-known-worldwide-strong, alma mater (sorry Wildcats). Electrical engineering was just not going to be feasible for a then-monolingual English speaker in Finland, and besides, I majored in it 90% out of curiosity anyway. I always intended to return to my once and future home, the shell, after my Rumspringa with electrons.

Sqlite on Andrew Quinn's TILs

You don't need CGO to use SQLite in your Go binary

SQLite is learnable