Encrypting SQLite Databases with Turso: Local, Cloud, and BYOK

Turso provides two SQLite encryption approaches: experimental native encryption in its open-source Rust-based local and edge database engine, and production-ready Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) encryption for Turso Cloud plans at the Pro tier and above. Local encryption uses hex-encoded keys, encrypts database and WAL pages transparently with AEGIS or AES-GCM ciphers, and reports mixed-workload overhead of roughly 0.5% to 2.8%, although write costs can reach about 14%; its experimental status reflects the absence of a formal third-party security audit. Cloud BYOK uses base64-encoded keys supplied on every connection, with keys held only in memory during processing rather than stored by Turso, adding customer-controlled encryption above the platform’s existing volume encryption. Supported cloud ciphers include AEGIS, AES-GCM, and Cloud-only ChaCha20-Poly1305, while AES-GCM is positioned for NIST-oriented compliance requirements and AEGIS for performance. The model can support per-customer encrypted databases with distinct keys for stronger tenant isolation, but native key rotation and in-place encryption of existing databases are not yet available, requiring export-and-import workflows instead.

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