turso

---

About

Turso is an in-process SQL database written in Rust, compatible with SQLite. It runs in production today at multiple organizations.

Turso is also a virtual machine. Like SQLite, it compiles SQL into bytecode for that machine, the VDBE, and then runs the bytecode. That design is what lets one engine host more than one SQL dialect. SQLite is the first and primary frontend that compiles to it, and Postgres is now a frontend of its own, with its own dialect and wire protocol. More will follow. Our goal is to be for databases what LLVM is to compilers, with one modern and reliable core, and many frontends compiled down onto it.

How general is that core? General enough to run Doom on it.

See the FAQ for where the project stands on its way to 1.0.

Features and Roadmap

• SQLite compatibility for SQL dialect, file formats, and the C API, tracking SQLite version 3.50.4 [see document for details]
• BEGIN CONCURRENT for improved write throughput using multi-version concurrency control (MVCC).
• Change data capture (CDC) for real-time tracking of database changes.
• Multi-language support for
  • Go
  • JavaScript
  • Java
  • .NET
  • Python
  • Rust
  • WebAssembly
• Asynchronous I/O support on Linux with io_uring
• Cross-platform support for Linux, macOS, Windows and browsers (through WebAssembly)
• Vector support support including exact search and vector manipulation
• Improved schema management including extended ALTER support and faster schema changes.

The database has the following experimental features:

• Postgres compatibility for SQL dialect and wire protocol, see the see compatibility reference for details.
• Encryption at rest for protecting the data locally.
• Incremental computation using DBSP for incremental view maintenance and query subscriptions.
• Full-Text-Search powered by the awesome tantivy library
• Multi-process WAL coordination via the .tshm sidecar for cross-process WAL readers and writers.

The following features are on our current roadmap:

• Vector indexing for fast approximate vector search, similar to libSQL vector search.

Getting Started

Please see the Turso Database Manual for more information.

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf \
  https://github.com/tursodatabase/turso/releases/latest/download/turso_cli-installer.sh | sh

Then launch the interactive shell:

$ tursodb

This will start the Turso interactive shell where you can execute SQL statements:

Turso
Enter ".help" for usage hints.
Connected to a transient in-memory database.
Use ".open FILENAME" to reopen on a persistent database
turso> CREATE TABLE users (id INT, username TEXT);
turso> INSERT INTO users VALUES (1, 'alice');
turso> INSERT INTO users VALUES (2, 'bob');
turso> SELECT * FROM users;
1|alice
2|bob

You can also build and run the latest development version with:

cargo run

If you like docker, we got you covered. Simply run this in the root folder:

make docker-cli-build && \
make docker-cli-run

cargo add turso

Example usage:

let db = Builder::new_local("sqlite.db").build().await?;
let conn = db.connect()?;

let res = conn.query("SELECT * FROM users", ()).await?;

npm i @tursodatabase/database

Example usage:

import { connect } from '@tursodatabase/database';

const db = await connect('sqlite.db');
const stmt = db.prepare('SELECT * FROM users');
const users = stmt.all();
console.log(users);

uv pip install pyturso

Example usage:

import turso

con = turso.connect("sqlite.db")
cur = con.cursor()
res = cur.execute("SELECT * FROM users")
print(res.fetchone())

go get turso.tech/database/tursogo
go install turso.tech/database/tursogo

Example usage:

import (
    "database/sql"
    _ "turso.tech/database/tursogo"
)

conn, _ = sql.Open("turso", "sqlite.db")
defer conn.Close()

stmt, _ := conn.Prepare("select * from users")
defer stmt.Close()

rows, _ = stmt.Query()
for rows.Next() {
    var id int
    var username string
    rows.Scan(&id, &username)
    fmt.Printf("User: ID: %d, Username: %s\n", id, username)
}

Example usage:

using Turso;

using var connection = new TursoConnection("Data Source=:memory:");
connection.Open();

connection.ExecuteNonQuery("CREATE TABLE t(a, b)");
var rowsAffected = connection.ExecuteNonQuery("INSERT INTO t(a, b) VALUES (1, 2), (3, 4)");
Console.WriteLine($"RowsAffected: {rowsAffected}");

using var command = connection.CreateCommand();
command.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM t";
using var reader = command.ExecuteReader();
while (reader.Read())
{
    var a = reader.GetInt32(0);
    var b = reader.GetInt32(1);
    Console.WriteLine($"Value1: {a}, Value2: {b}");
}

We integrated Turso Database into JDBC. For detailed instructions on how to use Turso Database with java, please refer to the README.md under bindings/java.

The Turso CLI includes a built-in Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that allows AI assistants to interact with your databases.

Start the MCP server with:

tursodb your_database.db --mcp

Configuration

Add Turso to your MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "turso": {
      "command": "/path/to/.turso/tursodb",
      "args": ["/path/to/your/database.db", "--mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Available Tools

The MCP server provides nine tools for database interaction:

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗