Oficially, WordPress only supports MySQL, but with this plugin created by kjmtsh you can use SQLite instead.

The plugin was created a long time ago, but still works like a charm on the current latest WP version (v5.2 – Jun 2019).

This solution is not meant to be used in production for large websites, but it can be an interesting option if you have a small blog with few visitors. An SQLite version works better than MySQL on a server with very limited resources.

By the way, this blog runs on SQLite 😉

UPDATE Nov 2020: This blog used to run on WordPress and SQLite, but I have migrated it to VuePress.

TIP

To migrate an existing site, see instructions at the end.

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This tutorial on video (3 min, no sound)

Step by Step

1. Download WordPress (opens new window) and SQLite Integration (opens new window) Plugin

wget https://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
wget https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/sqlite-integration.1.8.1.zip
ls
    latest.tar.gz  sqlite-integration.1.8.1.zip

2. Extract files

tar -xf latest.tar.gz
unzip sqlite-integration.1.8.1.zip
ls
    latest.tar.gz  wordpress  sqlite-integration.1.8.1.zip  sqlite-integration

3. Remove zip files (optional, for cleanup)

rm latest.tar.gz
rm sqlite-integration.1.8.1.zip
ls
    wordpress  sqlite-integration

4. Move plugin to wp-content/plugins

mv sqlite-integration wordpress/wp-content/plugins/

5. Move db.php to wp-content

cd wordpress
mv wp-content/plugins/sqlite-integration/db.php wp-content/
ls wp-content
    db.php  index.php  plugins  themes

6. Transform wp-config-sample.php into wp-config.php

mv wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php

7. Run the WP installer as usual

Start webserver:

php -S localhost:3000
    PHP 7.3.6-1 Development Server started at Sun Jun 16 22:29:00 2019
    Listening on http://localhost:3000
    Document root is /home/daniel/wordpress
    Press Ctrl-C to quit.

Open the page (http://localhost:3000/) and proceed with the installation.

No need to provide database information (the step will be skipped):

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Troubleshooting

If you see the "PDO Driver for SQLite is missing" error, install the php-sqlite package and restart the service:

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Migrating an existing website

TIP

NO NEED to convert MySQL to SQLite. Just use Duplicator (or any other migration plugin).

Install a brand new copy of WordPress with SQLite, then:

• Install Duplicator (opens new window) plugin on both websites (existing and brand new copy instances);
• Do a backup of your existing website using Duplicator;
• Restore the backup on the brand new instance using Duplicator’s "restore";
• Done!