Whenever I'm starting a new database-backed project, I usually default to using SQLite instead of networked databases like MySQL or Postgres.
SQLite is a flat file masquerading as a database, so it's very easy to get up and running with. It's part of the Python standard library. And contrary to popular belief, it's highly scaleable if you understand its limitations.
If your site or app is getting less than 500k hits/day with ~100k of those touching the database, you're well within SQLite's capabilities.
Migrations still suck, though.
I feel like they suck in any relational database model and they're …