A replicated SQLite is very cool! One question I would have is why expose that as the storage instead of the platform providing a managed storage API? I guess I might be concerned about replication lag and complexity for consumers with the replicated SQLite.

Is it to have more sympathy for LLMs? More 1:1 with a local dev environment?

The idea is for you to be able to publish a stateful app 'everywhere' that moves with your workload without micro-managing regions or resources, like a traditional CDN does for static content. The built-in replicated SQLite is what makes this possible and convenient.

The database is eventually consistent by design. For applications that can tolerate eventual consistency across regions, this gives fast local queries everywhere, and services that are resilient to network partitions. A database sitting alone in Virginia gives you slow requests waiting on queries from distant regions, and global downtime if that one load-bearing region goes unavailable for any reason.

The platform does also support persistent volumes (https://kedge.dev/docs/volumes), which is the managed storage API. I've framed it as an escape hatch for those that still need to run a more traditional service with stable members in a fixed region.