A closer look at the SpacetimeDB v2 benchmark: Is it really 23x faster than SQLite?

A good way to market a new infrastructure tool is to loudly announce that it is a thousand times faster than whatever you are currently using. This is a very effective strategy because nobody wants to be the person using a slower database. A few weeks ago, SpacetimeDB launched their v2 with exactly this premise. They released a slick video explaining that traditional web architecture—where your server talks to your database over a network—is fundamentally broken. The solution, they argue, is to just put your application code inside the database. And to prove it, they showed a chart. This chart is basically a graveyard of modern infrastructure. They lined up Postgres, PlanetScale, Convex, CockroachDB and a few others, and declared victory over all of them. First of all, you have got to love the cheeky little magnifying glass icons they added next to Convex, PlanetScale, and CockroachDB. Just to drive home how microscopic their numbers supposedly are. But if you ignore that for a second,