How we sped up Notion in the browser with WASM SQLite
August 15, 2025
This year we’ve been able to deliver this same improvement to users who access Notion through their web browsers. This article is a deep dive into how we used the WebAssembly (WASM) implementation of sqlite3 to improve Notion’s performance in the browser.
Using SQLite improved page navigation times by 20 percent in all modern browsers. And the difference was even more pronounced for users who are subject to especially slow API response times due to external factors like their Internet connection. For example, page navigation times sped up by 28 percent for users in Australia, by 31 percent for users in China, and by 33 percent for users in India.
Source: How we sped up Notion in the browser with WASM SQLite
The folks at Notion talk about how they use SQLite with WASM in the browser to significantly improve the performance of Notion for those who use the web app.
The local first architecture is gaining momentum, and it is solutions like this that will make web applications increasingly first-class citizens.
