Database

Kiosk Admin uses Prisma as its ORM and supports three database backends. SQLite requires no external service and is the default for development and small deployments.

SQLite (default)

No setup required. A dev.db file is created automatically in kiosk-admin/ when you first run migrations.

DATABASE_PROVIDER=sqlite
DATABASE_URL=file:./dev.db

npx prisma migrate dev

PostgreSQL

DATABASE_PROVIDER=postgresql
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/kiosk_admin

npx prisma migrate dev

MongoDB

DATABASE_PROVIDER=mongodb
DATABASE_URL=mongodb://localhost:27017/kiosk_admin

npx prisma db push   # MongoDB uses db push, not migrate

Caution

MongoDB does not support Prisma migrations. Use prisma db push to sync the schema — this will drop collections that no longer exist.

Switching backends

To switch from SQLite to PostgreSQL on an existing installation:

1. Export any important data first (there is no built-in migration tool between backends).
2. Update DATABASE_PROVIDER and DATABASE_URL in .env.
3. Run npx prisma migrate dev to create the schema in the new database.
4. Re-add devices and re-create users.