I'm hitting too many issues with SQLite in production. Should I move to PostgreSQL?

Probably yes if your production workload is starting to stress SQLite in ways that are hard to keep fixing.

Move to PostgreSQL if you have any of these:

• Multiple writers / high write concurrency
• Need for stronger operational reliability under load
• Complex querying, reporting, or analytics
• Multiple app instances or horizontally scaled deploys
• Need for roles/permissions, auditing, replication, backups, or other DB ops features
• Frequent “database is locked” issues or file-level contention
• Growing data volume where maintenance and migrations are becoming painful

Stay on SQLite if:

• Your app is small to medium scale
• You have mostly reads and low write concurrency
• You want simple deployment and minimal ops
• You can tolerate occasional constraints and are not hitting locking/contention problems
• It’s a desktop/embedded/single-node app where SQLite shines

Practical rule of thumb

If you’re already saying “too many issues in production,” and those issues are related to concurrency, locking, scaling, or operational pain, PostgreSQL is usually the right next step.

Common migration benefits

• Better concurrency model
• Better tooling and observability
• More robust transaction behavior under load
• Easier path for future scaling

Tradeoff

PostgreSQL adds:

• More operational complexity
• More moving parts
• Need to manage a real DB server

But for most production web apps, that tradeoff is worth it.

If you want, I can help you decide with a quick checklist based on your app size, traffic, and the specific SQLite problems you’re seeing.