I want to build a Python Discord bot where users can collect items at regular intervals and check their current balance. My idea was to use Google Sheets to store each user’s item count, but I’m wondering if this is the best approach. Are there better alternatives for storing user data in a Discord bot? I need something that can handle multiple users and persist their information between bot restarts. What would be the most efficient way to implement this kind of user tracking system?
Built something like this last year and faced the same choice. Google Sheets looks tempting since it’s visual and easy to debug, but the lag hits fast - even with 20-30 users you’ll notice delays on every command. PostgreSQL feels like overkill but if you want to scale past a small server, start with it now. Migrating from SQLite to PostgreSQL later is a nightmare, especially with existing user data. Since you’re doing regular item collection, add a caching layer no matter what database you pick. Users spam collection commands and you don’t want to hammer your database every time.
Google Sheets will hit a wall once you get more users - the API has rate limits and gets sluggish with lots of reads/writes. I ran into this exact problem with my first Discord bot. Started with JSON files since they’re simple, and they work fine for smaller communities. But I switched to SQLite pretty quickly - it’s the sweet spot between easy setup and good performance. SQLite doesn’t need a server, handles multiple users at once, and sqlite3 is already in Python. Any database (including SQLite) automatically handles persistence between restarts. The big win over Google Sheets? Speed and reliability, especially when multiple people are collecting items at the same time.
have u thought about using a sql database? it can help keep things organized and is pretty good for handling multiple users. plus, there are libraries that work well with discord bots. just my 2 cents!
This topic was automatically closed 4 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.