Last Updated: 3/9/2026

PocketBase v0.36.6

Overview

Getting started

PocketBase can be used as regular Go package that exposes various helpers and hooks to help you implement your own custom portable application.

A new PocketBase instance is created via pocketbase.New() or pocketbase.NewWithConfig(config) .

Once created you can register your custom business logic via the available event hooks and call app.Start() to start the application.

Below is a minimal example:

1. Install Go 1.23+ 

2. Create a new project directory with main.go file inside it.
   As a reference, you can also explore the prebuilt executable example/base/main.go file.

   package import("log" "os""github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase""github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/apis""github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase/core") func main(){:=. New(). OnServe(). BindFunc(func(*.) error{// serves static files from the provided public dir (if exists).. GET("/{path...}",. Static(. DirFS("./pb_public"), false)) return. Next()}) if:=. Start();!= nil{. Fatal()}}

3. To init the dependencies, run go mod init myapp && go mod tidy.

4. To start the application, run go run . serve.

5. To build a statically linked executable, run go build and then you can start the created executable with ./myapp serve.

Custom SQLite driver

The general recommendation is to use the builtin SQLite setup but if you need more advanced configuration or extensions like ICU, FTS5, etc. you’ll have to specify a custom driver/build.

Note that PocketBase by default doesn’t require CGO because it uses the pure Go SQLite port modernc.org/sqlite  , but this may not be the case when using a custom SQLite driver!

PocketBase v0.23+ added support for defining a DBConnect function as app configuration to load custom SQLite builds and drivers compatible with the standard Go database/sql.

The DBConnect function is called twice - once for pb_data/data.db (the main database file) and second time for pb_data/auxiliary.db (used for logs and other ephemeral system meta information).

If you want to load your custom driver conditionally and fallback to the default handler, then you can call core.DefaultDBConnect .
As a side-note, if you are not planning to use core.DefaultDBConnect fallback as part of your custom driver registration you can exclude the default pure Go driver with go build -tags no_default_driver to reduce the binary size a little (~4MB).

Below are some minimal examples with commonly used external SQLite drivers:

This is a CGO driver and requires to build your application with CGO_ENABLED=1.

For all available options please refer to the github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3 README.

package import("database/sql" "log""github.com/mattn/go-sqlite3""github.com/pocketbase/dbx""github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase")// register a new driver with default PRAGMAs and the same query// builder implementation as the already existing sqlite3 builder func init(){// initialize default PRAGMAs for each new connection. Register("pb_sqlite3", &.{: func(*.) error{_,:=. Exec( PRAGMA busy_timeout = 10000; PRAGMA journal_mode = WAL; PRAGMA journal_size_limit = 200000000; PRAGMA synchronous = NORMAL; PRAGMA foreign_keys = ON; PRAGMA temp_store = MEMORY; PRAGMA cache_size = -32000; , nil) return},},).["pb_sqlite3"] =.["sqlite3"]} func main(){:=. NewWithConfig(.{: func(string)(*., error){return. Open("pb_sqlite3",)},})// any custom hooks or plugins... if:=. Start();!= nil{. Fatal()}}

For all available options please refer to the github.com/ncruces/go-sqlite3 README.

package import("log""github.com/pocketbase/dbx""github.com/pocketbase/pocketbase" _"github.com/ncruces/go-sqlite3/driver" _"github.com/ncruces/go-sqlite3/embed") func main(){:=. NewWithConfig(.{: func(string)(*., error){const ="?_pragma=busy_timeout(10000)&_pragma=journal_mode(WAL)&_pragma=journal_size_limit(200000000)&_pragma=synchronous(NORMAL)&_pragma=foreign_keys(ON)&_pragma=temp_store(MEMORY)&_pragma=cache_size(-32000)" return. Open("sqlite3","file:" + +)},})// custom hooks and plugins... if:=. Start();!= nil{. Fatal()}}

Next: Event hooks