Building a database engine from scratch might sound intimidating—but it’s one of the most rewarding ways to truly understand how data systems work under the hood. In this article, I’ll walk you through the journey of creating a simple custom database engine, the challenges we faced, and what we learned along the way.

🧠 Why Build a Database Engine?

At first, it might seem unnecessary—after all, we already have powerful databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB. But building your own gives you:

A deep understanding of data storage and retrieval

Insight into performance optimization

Hands-on experience with memory management

Better problem-solving skills as a developer

This project isn’t about replacing existing databases—it’s about learning how they work.

⚙️ Core Concepts We Needed

Before writing any code, we had to understand the fundamentals:

1. Storage Engine

This is how data is physically stored. We chose a simple file-based system where records are written directly to disk.

2.…