At 12, most kids experiment with games or social apps—but one developer began building a database from scratch using only browser tools. What started as a playful project called FODB has since grown into LioranDB, an ambitious database engine now being rewritten in Rust to power India’s growing tech stack.
From a browser toy to a systems challenge
It all began with a simple idea: store data without a backend. The first version, FODB, used nothing more than HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the browser’s Local Storage. There were no transactions, no indexing, and certainly no storage engine—just raw JSON tucked away in the browser. Today, the developer laughs at the memory, but that experiment ignited a passion that would define the next decade.
Over the years, that passion led to recognition across Indian media and academic competitions. Awards from outlets like Nagpur Post and Tarun Bharat, along with top ranks in cyber and math Olympiads, provided motivation—but never overshadowed the real goal: building something useful.
The turning point: India needs its own database
One question kept surfacing: Why does nearly every modern application depend on infrastructure built outside India? From PostgreSQL to MongoDB, the foundational tools powering global software are foreign-made. This realization planted the seed for LioranDB—a database designed, built, and maintained in India.
The journey wasn’t theoretical. Early prototypes proved the concept’s viability. Between February 2025 and March 2026, the developer built and tested LioranDB’s first version in TypeScript. Ten real-world clients used it, and four expressed interest in paying for a production-ready release. That feedback validated the project’s purpose: solving a real problem for developers in India and beyond.
Rewriting the foundation in Rust
As the project matured, limitations of TypeScript became clear. Performance bottlenecks, scalability constraints, and reliability concerns made it unsuitable for a high-performance database. The solution? A complete rewrite in Rust—a language built for systems-level control, memory safety, and raw performance.
Migrating to Rust wasn’t easy. It required learning new paradigms, redesigning the storage engine from scratch, and rebuilding every component with zero assumptions. But the effort aligned with the long-term vision: a database engine that could handle real-world workloads without compromise.
What’s next for LioranDB in 2026
This year is focused on shipping LioranDB v2. Every day brings new benchmarks, crash recovery tests, latency optimizations, and stability improvements. The goal is clear: deliver a production-grade database engine that developers can trust.
Progress is steady, but challenges remain. The storage engine must handle millions of operations per second, recover instantly from crashes, and scale horizontally without losing consistency. Behind every line of code is a commitment to quality and performance.
A mission beyond code
LioranDB isn’t just a technical project—it’s part of a larger vision. India’s tech ecosystem thrives on global tools, but dependency on foreign infrastructure carries risks. By building core developer infrastructure locally, the project aims to strengthen India’s digital sovereignty and innovation capacity.
The path forward is long. There will be setbacks, bugs, and sleepless debugging nights. Yet every database begins with a single line of code. This developer’s journey started with a childhood experiment in Local Storage—and today, it’s inching toward production readiness.
The mission is clear: contribute to India’s tech future, one storage engine at a time.
AI summary
On iki yaşında basit bir tarayıcı deposuyla başlayan LioranDB projesi nasıl Hint geliştiricilerin yerli veri tabanı hayalini gerçekleştiriyor? Yerel başarılar, Rust’a geçiş ve gelecek planları.
