Ben Johnson discusses the latest updates and developments for Litestream, an open-source tool designed to enhance SQLite's resilience to server failures by streaming WAL checkpoints to object storage for real-time backup and recovery. Recent updates include faster performance and support for point-in-time recovery, achieved through the introduction of the LTX file format, which allows for efficient transaction-based data reconstruction and compaction. The focus has shifted back to Litestream from LiteFS due to user preference for its simplicity and ease of use, leading to the integration of transaction-aware features inspired by LiteFS. The new version, Litestream v0.5.0, simplifies backup management by eliminating the concept of generations and introducing transaction IDs for tracking database states, though it limits each database to a single replica destination to maintain consistency. Additional upgrades include enhanced file compression, support for NATS JetStream replication, and compatibility improvements with modern SQLite libraries and cloud storage providers. Future enhancements will include a virtual file system (VFS) for read replicas, allowing for immediate database access while data is still being retrieved.