sqlcipher3

NOTICE: This is a fork of sqlcipher3 which adds github action for creating wheels for Windows, MacOS and Linux. The unofficial wheels from this fork are uploaded to sqlcipher3-wheels on pypi, while the official wheels are sqlcipher3-binary. To install openssl easily, conan is used. I made some reference with this fork of pysqlite3 by Dobatymo

NOTICE: To build from this fork, copy sqlite3.c and sqlite3.h to src/sqlcipher, then run pip wheel . or python -m build .

NOTICE: The wheels are built with sqlcipher version 4. You have to execute PRAGMA cipher_compatibility = 3 before doing any operations on a database encrypted with SQLCipher version 3 when a newer version is installed. Keep in mind, you have to add PRAGMA cipher_compatibility after PRAGMA key:

from sqlcipher3 import dbapi2 as sqlite
conn = sqlite.connect('test.db')
c = conn.cursor()
c.execute("PRAGMA key='password'")
c.execute("PRAGMA cipher_compatibility = 3")
c.execute('''create table stocks (date text, trans text, symbol text, qty real, price real)''')
c.execute("""insert into stocks values ('2006-01-05','BUY','RHAT',100,35.14)""")
conn.commit()
c.close()

This library takes pysqlite3 and makes some small modifications so it is suitable for use with sqlcipher (sqlite with encryption).

Additional features:

User-defined window functions (requires SQLite >= 3.25)
Flags and VFS an be specified when opening connection
Incremental BLOB I/O, bpo-24905
Improved error messages, bpo-16379
Simplified detection of DML statements via sqlite3_stmt_readonly.
Sqlite native backup API (also present in standard library 3.7 and newer).

A completely self-contained binary package (wheel) is available for versions 0.4.0 and newer as sqlcipher3-binary. This package contains the latest release of sqlcipher compiled with numerous extensions, and requires no external dependencies.

Building with System SQLCipher

To build sqlcipher3 linked against the system SQLCipher, run:

$ python setup.py build

Building a statically-linked library

To build sqlcipher3 statically-linked against a particular version of SQLCipher, you need to obtain the SQLCipher source code and copy sqlite3.c and sqlite3.h into the source tree.

# Download the latest version of SQLCipher source code and build the source
# amalgamation files (sqlite3.c and sqlite3.h).
$ git clone https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher
$ cd sqlcipher/
$ ./configure
$ make sqlite3.c

# Copy the sqlcipher amalgamation files into the root of the sqlcipher3
# checkout and run build_static + build:
$ cp sqlcipher/sqlite3.[ch] sqlcipher3/
$ cd sqlcipher3
$ python setup.py build_static build

You now have a statically-linked, completely self-contained sqlcipher3.

Using the binary package

A binary package (wheel) is available for linux with a completely self-contained sqlcipher3, statically-linked against the most recent release of sqlcipher.

$ pip install sqlcipher3-binary

0.5.7 Jan 07, 2026

0.5.6 Nov 24, 2025

0.5.5.post0 Aug 26, 2025

0.5.5 Jul 19, 2025

0.5.4.post0 Apr 11, 2025

0.5.4 Feb 10, 2025

0.5.2.post1 Feb 29, 2024

0.5.2.post0 Feb 25, 2024

0.5.2 Feb 24, 2024

Wheel compatibility matrix

Platform	CPython 3.8	CPython 3.9	CPython 3.10	CPython 3.11	CPython 3.12	CPython 3.13	CPython 3.14	CPython (additional flags: t) 3.14
macosx_10_13_universal2
macosx_10_13_x86_64
macosx_10_15_universal2
macosx_10_15_x86_64
macosx_10_9_universal2
macosx_10_9_x86_64
macosx_11_0_arm64
manylinux_2_28_aarch64
manylinux_2_28_i686
manylinux_2_28_ppc64le
manylinux_2_28_s390x
manylinux_2_28_x86_64
musllinux_1_2_aarch64
musllinux_1_2_i686
musllinux_1_2_ppc64le
musllinux_1_2_s390x
musllinux_1_2_x86_64
win32
win_amd64
win_arm64