DEV Community: Swaraj Puppalwar

LioranDB V2 Pre-Alpha Launch | 16 August 2026

Swaraj Puppalwar — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:43:56 +0000

We're excited to announce that LioranDB V2 Pre-Alpha will officially launch on 16 August 2026.

This release is focused on validating the new Rust-powered engine with early adopters and gathering real-world feedback.

Current capabilities:

⚡ Up to 10,000 writes/sec
📖 Up to 35,000 reads/sec
📦 Supports datasets of up to 10 million documents
🦀 Built from the ground up in Rust

We'll begin offering early access to a small number of SaaS startups at an affordable cost. If you're building an AI product, CRM, API, or any backend application and want to try a modern document database while helping shape its future, we'd love to work with you.

This is just the beginning. Your feedback during the pre-alpha will directly influence the roadmap toward a production-ready release.

Launch Date: 16 August 2026
Interested in early access? Stay tuned.

Why I'm Building an Indian Database: The Story Behind LioranDB

Swaraj Puppalwar — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:49:34 +0000

People often ask me why I decided to build a database.

The answer goes back much further than LioranDB.

It started when I was 12 years old.

When I was around 12, I decided that I wanted to build my own database.

Of course, I had no idea how real databases actually worked.

I built my first "database" using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Socket.IO, and the browser's Local Storage. There was no WAL, no indexing, no storage engine, no recovery, no transactions—just JSON stored in Local Storage. 😄

I proudly named it FODB (Free Online DB).

Looking back today, it makes me laugh.

But that small project started a journey that I'm still on today.

Learning, building, and growing

Over the next few years, I kept learning programming and computer science.

That journey led to several recognitions that motivated me to keep going.

Media Recognition

Nagpur Post — 23 May 2023 — "Swaraj's High Rise in Computers!"
Navarashtra (Chandrapur Edition) — 23 May 2023 — "स्वराजची संगणक क्षेत्रात उंच भरारी"
Tarun Bharat (Purva Vidarbha Edition) — 29 May 2023 — "'स्वराज'ची संगणकात गगनभरारी"

Academic & Technical Achievements

Crest Cyber Olympiad — Western Region Rank 17
Cyber Olympiad — State Rank 1
International Computer Olympiad — State Rank 30
International Mathematics Olympiad — State Rank 30
Participant — 30th National Children's Science Congress
2nd Rank — School Cyber / Software Olympiad
Certificate of Excellence — Exam Pe Charcha 2023

These achievements gave me confidence, but they were never the final goal.

I always wanted to build something real.

The question that changed everything

One question kept coming back to me:

"Why doesn't India have its own widely adopted database?"

Almost every modern application depends on infrastructure built outside India.

That made me wonder...

Why can't we build our own?

That question eventually became LioranDB.

The first version

In February 2025, I started building LioranDB.

The first version was written in TypeScript.

I worked on it continuously until March 2026.

That version taught me a huge amount about storage engines, indexing, replication, crashes, performance, and what it really takes to build a database.

More importantly, it wasn't just an experiment.

Around 10 real clients tested the TypeScript version and gave valuable feedback.

Out of those, 4 have already expressed interest in becoming paying customers once the new version is production-ready.

That gave me confidence that this project solves a real problem.

Starting over with Rust

As LioranDB grew, I realized something important.

TypeScript wasn't the right foundation for the database I wanted to build.

To reach the performance, reliability, and scalability I envisioned, I needed a systems programming language.

So I made one of the hardest decisions I've taken as a developer.

I started over.

I learned Rust, studied data structures and storage engine design, planned a completely new architecture, and began building LioranDB v2 from scratch.

It wasn't easy.

But it was the right decision.

2026: Building LioranDB v2

This year is dedicated to launching LioranDB v2.

Every day has been filled with writing code, running benchmarks, fixing bugs, performing crash tests, improving latency, and making the engine more stable.

There's still a lot to do, but every week the database gets closer to production.

This is just the beginning

LioranDB isn't just another side project for me.

It's a long-term mission.

I want to help build more developer infrastructure from India.

I know the road ahead is long, and there is still an enormous amount to learn.

But every database starts with the first line of code.

Mine started with a funny little Local Storage project called FODB.

Today, that childhood curiosity has grown into LioranDB.

And I'm just getting started. 🇮🇳

NoSQL Document Database, 100% Made in India: LioranDB

Swaraj Puppalwar — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 14:53:38 +0000

We are a tech infrastructure company: Lioran Developer Solutions (LDS) under Lioran Group (LG).

Our Vision

Reduce dependency on foreign infrastructure.
Build 100% Made in India developer infrastructure.
Support the vision that Indian data should stay in India.

Why did we build LioranDB v2?

Our goal was never to build "another database."

We wanted to build a modern document database in Rust for early Tier-2 SaaS startups that need high performance, simple deployment, predictable pricing, and infrastructure that can be self-hosted in India.

LioranDB is a NoSQL document database written in Rust and designed for modern backend applications.

The Journey

I spent more than a month learning Rust and Data Structures & Algorithms before starting this engine.

After that:

Planned the entire v2 architecture in one week.
Built the KV storage engine in Rust during the first two weeks.
Started building the DBMS layer.
Spent more than 30 days running continuous write tests, read tests, soak tests, crash tests, finding bugs, and improving the engine every single day.

The result is an engine that is dramatically better than what we had before.

Current Alpha Progress

Currently, we have achieved the following milestones:

✅ 10k WRPS target
✅ p99 write latency <= 500 ms (mostly)
✅ 10 million documents inserted
✅ All crash tests passed
✅ 35k RPS
✅ Fast reads
✅ Stable 45k operations per second

7/7 major tasks completed.

Almost 99% of the planned Alpha work is finished.

It will take around 20 more days to polish the engine for a stable Alpha release.

Version Roadmap

Pre-Alpha

10 million documents
10k WRPS
35k RPS
45k total operations/sec
<= 500 ms p99 write latency
Functional but not fully stable

Alpha (Current Stage)

Almost complete.

Same performance goals as Pre-Alpha, but with:

Better stability
Faster engine
Target p99 write latency below 150 ms

Currently, the engine can also achieve around 25k WRPS, but write latency can occasionally rise above our target. That optimization work will continue before Beta.

What's Next?

Pre-Beta

100 million documents
20k WRPS
80k RPS

Beta

A production-ready, stable version of the Pre-Beta architecture.

Once Alpha is complete, we'll begin onboarding early customers and continue improving the engine alongside real production workloads.

Who are we building this for?

Our initial focus is early Tier-2 SaaS startups.

Companies that need:

A fast document database
Rust-based performance
Self-hosted deployment
Predictable infrastructure costs
Direct support from the founders

Instead of trying to serve everyone from day one, we're focusing on solving real infrastructure problems for growing SaaS companies.

This is only the beginning.

We're building developer infrastructure from India, for developers everywhere.

LioranDB — 100% Made in India. 🇮🇳

LioranDB Progress

Swaraj Puppalwar — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:40:11 +0000

LioranDB:

Support the Indian government initiative that Indian data should stay in India.
100% Made in India database.
Reduce dependency on foreign tech infrastructure.

Metrics:

10 million docs
Text & other indexes
Stable 45k ops per second (10k writes and 35k reads)
1 GB storage per 1 million docs (for heavy SaaS)

LioranDB is a NoSQL document database. I have Lioran Developer Solutions (LDS) under my Lioran Group (LG).

The vision of LDS is to build a global infrastructure technology company from India to the globe.

Currently, we have tested LioranDB v1.2.7 with 10+ clients, and 90% of the feedback has been positive. Four clients are ready to pay.

We are building LioranDB v2 in Rust. The v1 series was built on LevelDB in TypeScript, but v2 has its own 100% Made in India KV store, engine, and everything else.

We are making it an early production-grade database soon. We will initially target early Tier-2 SaaS companies by offering self-hosted database licenses and managed databases through our website.

Spent the last 5 months building a lightweight embedded database for Node.js. MongoDB-like syntax, file-based storage, and designed to be simple and memory-efficient. Would love feedback from backend developers.

Swaraj Puppalwar — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 15:30:06 +0000

Swaraj Puppalwar

Apr 24

I Built a Lightweight Embedded Database for Node.js — LioranDB

#node #typescript #database #javascript

1 min read

I Built a Lightweight Embedded Database for Node.js — LioranDB

Swaraj Puppalwar — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 14:16:29 +0000

I'm a 17-year-old full stack developer and CTO at Lioran Group.

A few months ago, I started building a fun prototype for a lightweight and embedded database for my own projects. While working on it, I realized it was saving me a lot of development time because the syntax is similar to MongoDB, while staying fully NoSQL and file-based.

Over the last 5 months, I focused on improving stability, performance, and reliability.

One of the major advantages of LioranDB is that it can run anywhere and is designed to be lightweight and memory-efficient.

For 1 million documents:

200 MB RAM
300 MB storage (including WAL + indexes)

To install:

npm i @liorandb/core

Sample Code:

import { LioranManager } from "@liorandb/core";

const manager = new LioranManager({
  // optional: where databases live on disk
  // rootPath: "./data",
});

const db = await manager.db("app");
const users = db.collection("users");

await users.insertOne({ email: "a@b.com", plan: "free" });

const found = await users.findOne({ email: "a@b.com" });
console.log(found);

await manager.close();

We are actively collecting developer feedback. If you find this project interesting, feel free to join the Discord server for discussions, support, and feature suggestions.

Discord: https://discord.gg/WsWWThjPMp

Documentation: https://db.lioransolutions.com/docs/embedded/getting-started

Thanks to everyone who is willing to try the project and share feedback.