Datasette
Hacker ApprovedData exploration tool in Developer tools
Open source tool for exploring and publishing SQLite data, praised as a flexible framework that runs in the browser and works with many extensions. Critics point to honor-system write limits and browser problems.
Open source tool for exploring and publishing SQLite data, praised as a flexible framework that runs in the browser and works with many extensions. Critics point to honor-system write limits and browser problems.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 85%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 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
Query SQLite data in the browser
“Datasette-lite + URL redirect API + litestream would probably work well”
Comment from 21 Dec 2025 in “Go ahead, self-host Postgres” “it's pretty cool to query the SQLite db in the browser”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)” “there is also Datasette in a browser now”
Comment from 26 Dec 2025 in “Package managers keep using Git as a database, it never works out” Extensible, part of a useful ecosystem
“Simon Willison wonderful Datasette plus the mbox-to-sqlite extension is exactly what you want.”
Comment from 30 Apr 2026 in “Full-Text Search with DuckDB” “I have a project to help with that: uvx datasette data.db”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “SQLite in Production: Lessons from Running a Store on a Single File” “Looks like a good addition to the datasette ecosystem”
Comment from 19 Jun 2026 in “Datasette Apps: Host custom HTML applications inside Datasette” Flexible framework for data exploration
“datasette is a terrific framework to build any kind of data exploration or visualization on.”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Datasette Apps: Host custom HTML applications inside Datasette” “datasette historically was something I leaned on often at work and in personal projects”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Devtools must be open source”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Fails to load in some browsers
“The links you posted only show a frozen loading spinner for me (iOS Safari).”
Comment from 28 May 2026 in “Five frontier LLMs disagree on 67% of 1k real-world fact-check claims” “It doesn't work on Firefox”
Comment from 4 Sep 2026 in “Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board”
What people said
24 of the 26 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It doesn't work on Firefox”
“I was lucky enough to miss the "Datasette" days.”
“datasette historically was something I leaned on often at work and in personal projects”
“datasette is a terrific framework to build any kind of data exploration or visualization on.”
“Everything becoming its own self-serve artifact factory is great.”
“it's smaller than a lot of modern React homepages”
“the write restriction is basically honor system”
“Looks like a good addition to the datasette ecosystem”
“I've spun up simple HTML pages and used the json endpoint that all datasette instances come with”
“I like this new pattern much better, as it keeps your app and data in one place”
“I've had lots of fun with WASM Python in the browser”
“present/filter in realtime with simonw's excellent”
“The links you posted only show a frozen loading spinner for me (iOS Safari).”
“to make it easier to explore”
“the UI is nothing like a regular mail client, so would be difficult to use for non-technical users”
“Simon Willison wonderful Datasette plus the mbox-to-sqlite extension is exactly what you want.”
“Hi, thanks for your project!”
“I have a project to help with that: uvx datasette data.db”
“I remain very proud of my current open source projects too”
“I do think your datasettes work is fantastic”
“there is also Datasette in a browser now”
“Datasette-lite + URL redirect API + litestream would probably work well”
“it's pretty cool to query the SQLite db in the browser”
“makes it easier to read and adds filters for things like issue type and status”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.