This paper examines SQLite, the world's most widely deployed database engine, exploring its history, architecture, and performance characteristics. The authors benchmark SQLite against DuckDB, an analytics-focused database, across various workloads (OLTP, OLAP, and blob processing). Key performance bottlenecks in SQLite's OLAP capabilities are identified and addressed through optimisation, resulting in significant speed improvements. The study also considers the resource footprint of both databases, comparing their compilation times, library sizes, and data storage efficiency. Finally, the authors discuss future development directions for SQLite, balancing performance enhancements with its established strengths of portability, compactness, and reliability.