Hacker ApprovedDepartments

Cloudflare D1

Ranked 4 of 15 managed databases by recommenders

Cheap, zero-ops SQLite database for Cloudflare Workers with a generous free tier; critics cite latency spikes and slow queries.

Cheap, zero-ops SQLite database for Cloudflare Workers with a generous free tier; critics cite latency spikes and slow queries.

66 people gave an opinion

recommend it
36
criticize it
30
approval share
55%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 10 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: recommended
  2. December 2025: recommended
  3. January 2026: recommended
  4. February 2026: not recommended
  5. March 2026: recommended
  6. April 2026: recommended
  7. May 2026: recommended
  8. June 2026: recommended
  9. July 2026: not recommended
  10. August 2026: recommended
  11. September 2026: recommended
  12. October 2026: recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 36 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 1.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
  • Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.

The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works

What people say about it

The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.

Why people recommend it

Each mark is one comment

  • Generous free tier

    “D2 is literally the only sqlite-as-a-service solution out there whose reliability is great and free tier limits are generous.”

    Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

    “Cloudflare workers/pages/D1/R2 works great for me on the free plan.”

    Comment from 21 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: How do you host your vibe coded tools/sites?”

    “cheap D1/Vectorize, zero server ops, free tier covers most sites”

    Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Recto: Open-source internal-linking and orphan-page auditor (Cloudflare)”
  • Works well with Workers

    “Cloudflare makes this easy with D1, you can tie Durable Objects to a user as an afterthought.”

    Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Many Small Queries Are Efficient in SQLite”

    “Globally deploying edge workers which have access to their many services (D1, R2, DO, etc)”

    Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “VoidZero Is Joining Cloudflare”

    “Cloudflare makes this pretty easy with D1/Hyperdrive.”

    Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Databases in 2025: A Year in Review”
  • Reliable and low maintenance

    “D2 is literally the only sqlite-as-a-service solution out there whose reliability is great and free tier limits are generous.”

    Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

    “nor have we really observed D1 erroring out for extended periods or frequently”

    Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

    “A tiny store on SQLite/D1 with no admin UI is boring and it stays up.”

    Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “PostgreSQL for Everything”
  • Fine for small datasets

    “If you are gathering some survey data, running a CMS, etc. you probably should be fine with even just a few MB of data; which is probably the sweet spot for D1.”

    Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

    “D1 is pretty much sufficient on it's own”

    Comment from 30 May 2026 in “SQLite is all you need for durable workflows”

    “D1 is fine when it fits the use case”

    Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Astro Joining Cloudflare”

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Slow or unpredictable latency

    “Can't claim you offer a reliable database at scale if a trivial lookup on a 10-row table resolves in 20 seconds.”

    Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Tell HN: Cloudflare's D1 service degraded since 2 days”

    “Their database offering (D1) had some unpredictable latency spikes that I never managed to fully track down.”

    Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Bunny Database”

    “Most of the time queries just take 2-10s, some even 20s+ and a few times they even hang indefinitely.”

    Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Tell HN: Cloudflare's D1 service degraded since 2 days”
  • Cannot create databases dynamically

    “my biggest issue with it is you can’t create D1 dbs dynamically”

    Comment from 24 Oct 2026 in “Twelve years of distributed SQLite”

    “it's not possible to create D1 databases on the fly and interact them because databases must be mentioned in the worker bindings”

    Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow”
  • Size and CPU limits

    “Now stuff like Cloudflare D1, the distributed SQLite based database, have its limitations.”

    Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare”

    “the 10GB limit for D1 is crazy, can you really start building on that?”

    Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

    “D1's 10ms CPU limit means you have to pre-aggregate everything”

    Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: CloudCounter – Serverless GoatCounter on Cloudflare Pages and D1”
  • Poor developer experience and visibility

    “Even just having a better DX/UI around D1 and their other current offerings would be a great start”

    Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Astro Joining Cloudflare”

    “There are some weird errors in d1 from time to time which i cannot debug since its all black box.”

    Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Temporary Cloudflare Accounts for AI Agents”

Other managed databases people recommend

The four most recommended other managed databases, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.

Cloudflare D1 compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
Amazon RDS504354%11——
Neon Postgres481083%12—Approved
DynamoDB463160%11——
Cloudflare D1This page363055%10——
PlanetScale332854%10——
See all 15 managed databases, ranked

What people said

40 of the 73 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“my biggest issue with it is you can’t create D1 dbs dynamically”

MixedComment from 24 Oct 2026 in “Twelve years of distributed SQLite”

“all of it can be explained on a single A4 page with a 14pt font including D1 + Durable objects”

RecommendsComment from 9 Oct 2026 in “Cloudflare acquires Deno”

“Their free tier for stuff like Workers and D1 is quite generous.”

RecommendsComment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Web Search API”

“I usually don't bother setting up services with state, but maybe CF D1 is hands-free enough.”

RecommendsComment from 4 Oct 2026 in “We want you to build the next Git platform on Cloudflare”

“workers and D1 are insanely good offerings”

RecommendsComment from 4 Oct 2026 in “We want you to build the next Git platform on Cloudflare”

“Cloudflare, unfortunately, sometimes have hiccups on D1 and KV with timeout”

CriticizesComment from 27 Sep 2026 in “The internet discovers TLA+. Now what?”

“Now stuff like Cloudflare D1, the distributed SQLite based database, have its limitations.”

MixedComment from 8 Sep 2026 in “Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare”

“it solidified why I really like my stack, cheap, fast, scalable enough”

RecommendsComment from 27 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: OngsList – my own billboard but in the style of Craigslist”

“Cloudflare workers/pages/D1/R2 works great for me on the free plan.”

RecommendsComment from 21 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: How do you host your vibe coded tools/sites?”

“A tiny store on SQLite/D1 with no admin UI is boring and it stays up.”

RecommendsComment from 20 Aug 2026 in “PostgreSQL for Everything”

“Once you know how to use Durable Objects, there's no reason to use D1.”

MixedComment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Temporary Cloudflare Accounts for AI Agents”

“There are some weird errors in d1 from time to time which i cannot debug since its all black box.”

CriticizesComment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Temporary Cloudflare Accounts for AI Agents”

“Globally deploying edge workers which have access to their many services (D1, R2, DO, etc)”

RecommendsComment from 4 Jun 2026 in “VoidZero Is Joining Cloudflare”

“cheap D1/Vectorize, zero server ops, free tier covers most sites”

RecommendsComment from 31 May 2026 in “Recto: Open-source internal-linking and orphan-page auditor (Cloudflare)”

“D1 is pretty much sufficient on it's own”

RecommendsComment from 30 May 2026 in “SQLite is all you need for durable workflows”

“Workers, D1, R2, queues, containers, KV”

RecommendsComment from 27 May 2026 in “Cloudflare Flagship”

“I can deploy fullstack applications and use D1 Database and Cloudflare KV to replace Redis”

RecommendsComment from 10 May 2026 in “I returned to AWS, and was reminded why I left”

“If you are gathering some survey data, running a CMS, etc. you probably should be fine with even just a few MB of data; which is probably the sweet spot for D1.”

RecommendsComment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

“nor have we really observed D1 erroring out for extended periods or frequently”

RecommendsComment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

“the 10GB limit for D1 is crazy, can you really start building on that?”

CriticizesComment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

“Can be done with custom code in a worker, but wish it was first-party”

RecommendsComment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

“D2 is literally the only sqlite-as-a-service solution out there whose reliability is great and free tier limits are generous.”

RecommendsComment from 16 Apr 2026 in “Cloudflare's AI Platform: an inference layer designed for agents”

“which has an amazing free tier and is sqlite under da hood”

RecommendsComment from 12 Apr 2026 in “I run multiple $10K MRR companies on a $20/month tech stack”

“Workers + D1 is a great fit for something like this.”

RecommendsComment from 4 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: At Your Own Risk – Disclaimer pages for things that don't need them”

“we use Cloudflare D1 for the immutable ledger to sign the integrity reports”

RecommendsComment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Sentinel – Deterministic WASM Auditor for EU AI Act Compliance”

“D1's 10ms CPU limit means you have to pre-aggregate everything”

CriticizesComment from 5 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: CloudCounter – Serverless GoatCounter on Cloudflare Pages and D1”

“Their database offering (D1) had some unpredictable latency spikes that I never managed to fully track down.”

CriticizesComment from 3 Feb 2026 in “Bunny Database”

“Cloudflare makes this easy with D1, you can tie Durable Objects to a user as an afterthought.”

RecommendsComment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Many Small Queries Are Efficient in SQLite”

“Can't claim you offer a reliable database at scale if a trivial lookup on a 10-row table resolves in 20 seconds.”

CriticizesComment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Tell HN: Cloudflare's D1 service degraded since 2 days”

“Most of the time queries just take 2-10s, some even 20s+ and a few times they even hang indefinitely.”

CriticizesComment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Tell HN: Cloudflare's D1 service degraded since 2 days”

“D1 is fine when it fits the use case”

MixedComment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Astro Joining Cloudflare”

“Even just having a better DX/UI around D1 and their other current offerings would be a great start”

CriticizesComment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Astro Joining Cloudflare”

“cloudflare offers a turso (serverless sqlite) alternative as Cloudflare D1”

MixedComment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Astro Joining Cloudflare”

“Cloudflare makes this pretty easy with D1/Hyperdrive.”

RecommendsComment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Databases in 2025: A Year in Review”

“what D1/libSql/Turso brings to the table is the ability to run a read/write replica in the machine”

RecommendsComment from 2 Jan 2026 in “OpenWorkers: Self-Hosted Cloudflare Workers in Rust”

“Bringing D1 makes a lot of sense for web apps via libSql”

RecommendsComment from 2 Jan 2026 in “OpenWorkers: Self-Hosted Cloudflare Workers in Rust”

“I find their SQL database's latency to be absolutely unusable”

CriticizesComment from 24 Dec 2025 in “Show HN: Just Fucking Use Cloudflare – A satirical guide to the CF stack”

“there is an upper limit of 5000 bindings per worker”

MixedComment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow”

“it's not possible to create D1 databases on the fly and interact them because databases must be mentioned in the worker bindings”

CriticizesComment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Python Workers redux: fast cold starts, packages, and a uv-first workflow”

“all the other facilities CF offers such as R2 and D1 could be used with an email platform that could scale incredibly well”

MixedComment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Replicate is joining Cloudflare”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.