Kinds of databases

Databases available¶

There are three databases built in to PythonAnywhere:

• SQLite, which is available for everyone. As it relies on the file system, it runs a bit slower on the cloud -- we don't recommend it as a production database.
• MySQL, which is available on all paid accounts and free accounts created before 2026-01-15 (or 2026-01-08 in the EU system).
• Postgres in available in paid plans only, as an add-on.

Connecting to external databases¶

If you have a paid plan, you can connect to databases outside PythonAnywhere. This means that you can get, say, a Redis instance from Redis, a MongoDB instance from mLab (check out this help page for some hints about that), or a Microsoft SQL Server instance from Azure, and connect to it from your code. If the provider you choose has the option to place your database in a specific Amazon Web Services Availability Zone, then putting it in:

• us-east-1, if your account is on our US branch (you log in via www.pythonanywhere.com)
• eu-central-1, if your account is on our EU branch (you log in via eu.pythonanywhere.com)

will put it very close to our servers and give the best performance.