I have been working on SNKV, a lightweight SQLite's B-tree based key value store focused on predictable performance and low memory usage. I benchmarked SNKV against RocksDB using 1,000,000 records on the same hardware with minimal tuning on both sides.

Mixed workload 70 percent reads 20 percent writes 10 percent deletes SNKV 49,119 ops per second RocksDB 43,394 ops per second

Random reads 50,000 lookups SNKV 69,174 ops per second RocksDB 54,029 ops per second

Sequential scan 1,000,000 records SNKV 1,842,380 ops per second RocksDB 973,795 ops per second

Sequential writes 1,000,000 inserts SNKV 122,580 ops per second RocksDB 438,452 ops per second

Peak process memory usage SNKV approximately 2 MB RocksDB approximately 20 MB

These results reflect architectural tradeoffs. RocksDB performs strongly in sustained write heavy scenarios, while SNKV performs well in balanced read write workloads and scan heavy use cases.

SNKV benchmark source https://github.com/hash-anu/snkv/blob/master/tests/test_benc...

RocksDB benchmark source https://github.com/hash-anu/rocksdb-benchmark

Feedback on benchmark methodology and configuration fairness is welcome.