Cloudflare D1 Has a Free Serverless SQL Database — Here's How to Use It

Running a database shouldn't cost you $50/month for a side project. Cloudflare D1 gives you a serverless SQLite database at the edge — with a generous free tier.

What Is Cloudflare D1?

D1 is Cloudflare's serverless SQL database built on SQLite. It runs at the edge, close to your users, and integrates natively with Cloudflare Workers.

Free Tier

• 5 million rows read per day
• 100,000 rows written per day
• 5 GB storage included
• Unlimited databases (up to 50,000)

That's enough for most side projects, MVPs, and even small production apps.

Quick Start

# Create a database
npx wrangler d1 create my-database

# Run migrations
npx wrangler d1 execute my-database --file=./schema.sql

-- schema.sql
CREATE TABLE users (
  id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
  email TEXT UNIQUE NOT NULL,
  name TEXT NOT NULL,
  created_at DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

// Worker code
export default {
  async fetch(request, env) {
    const { results } = await env.DB.prepare(
      "SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = ?"
    ).bind("[e-mail]").all();

    return Response.json(results);
  }
};

Why D1 Stands Out

Feature	D1	Traditional DBs
Setup time	30 seconds	15-30 minutes
Edge latency	<10ms	50-200ms
Scaling	Automatic	Manual
Cost (hobby)	Free	$5-50/month
Backups	Automatic	Manual setup

Real-World Use Case

An indie developer built a URL shortener with D1. The database runs at 300+ edge locations globally. Users get sub-10ms response times regardless of location. Total cost: $0/month for 50K daily clicks.

Key Features

• Time Travel — query your database at any point in the last 30 days
• Automatic replication — reads served from nearest edge location
• REST API — query from anywhere, not just Workers
• Import/Export — standard SQLite format
• Batch operations — multiple queries in a single round trip

When to Use D1

• Side projects and MVPs (free tier is generous)
• Read-heavy workloads (edge caching)
• Global applications (low latency everywhere)
• Cloudflare Workers ecosystem apps

Get Started

• Documentation
• Pricing
• Tutorial

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