SQLitePress (archived)

This project is retired. Use WordPress Playground instead.

npx @wp-playground/cli@latest start

That gives you a local WordPress on SQLite in seconds. No Docker, no MySQL, no vendored copy of WordPress core, and nothing to keep updated.

Why this is archived

SQLitePress was built in 2017 to answer one question: how fast can you get a local WordPress running? The trick was to vendor a full WordPress checkout into git alongside the SQLite drop-in, so git clone plus php -S localhost:8000 was all you needed.

It worked, but every WordPress release meant re-vendoring the entire core tree by hand. I did that five times in nine years and the repo was usually out of date. The last snapshot here is WordPress 6.9 with the official sqlite-database-integration plugin.

The tooling caught up. WordPress Playground runs PHP compiled to WebAssembly against SQLite, so there is no core to vendor and no version to chase.

What to use now

Playground CLI, for a throwaway or persistent local site:

npx @wp-playground/cli@latest start

The site persists between runs under ~/.wordpress-playground/sites/. Useful flags:

• --wp=6.9 and --php=8.3 to pin versions
• --mount=/host/path:/vfs/path to develop a theme or plugin in place
• --auto-mount to detect and mount the current project
• --port=9400 to change the port
• --reset to wipe the stored site and start clean

If you would rather have a GUI, Studio is a free desktop app built on the same WebAssembly and SQLite engine, with one-click sites on macOS, Windows and Linux.

If you want SQLite on a normal WordPress install rather than a Playground one, install the sqlite-database-integration plugin directly. It is still a feature plugin and has not been merged into core. Its 2025 driver rewrite closed most of the remaining MySQL compatibility gaps.

Neither this project nor SQLite-backed WordPress in general is meant for production.

The old instructions

Kept for anyone who lands here from an old link. This repository still works as it did.

git clone https://github.com/joemalott/SQLitePress your-project-name
cd your-project-name
php -S localhost:8000

Open http://localhost:8000, enter admin credentials, and you have WordPress 6.9 on SQLite. You will want to update WordPress once you are in.