# better-sqlite3 v13.0.0

- Product: better-sqlite3 (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/better-sqlite3)
- Vendor: WiseLibs
- Date: 2026-07-21
- Version: v13.0.0
- Original notes: https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3/releases/tag/v13.0.0
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/better-sqlite3/releases/v13.0.0

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

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- **changed** — Refactored codebase to use node-addon-api and N-API for compatibility across different versions of Node.js and Electron
- **removed** — Removed deprecated prebuild-install dependency
- **added** — Added db.explain() method for running EXPLAIN queries without needing to supply bound parameters
- **added** — Added preparedStatement.toString() method for getting the expanded SQL of a prepared statement
- **fixed** — Fixed SqliteError cross-realm and Error.isError compatibility

Version `13.0.0` marks a major milestone, as it's the first version of `better-sqlite3` to run on [the N-API](https://nodejs.org/api/n-api.html). This means prebuilt binaries should theoretically work across different versions of Node.js and Electron, and perhaps even other runtimes like Bun. As a result, we've removed the deprecated [`prebuild-install`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/prebuild-install) dependency, and now prebuilt binaries are published directly with the `better-sqlite3` code itself. If your platform/architecture doesn't have a prebuilt binary, it should compile during install as before.

##### What's Changed
* Refactored codebase to use node-addon-api by @JoshuaWise in https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3/pull/1498
* Added a new [`db.explain()`](https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3/blob/master/docs/api.md#explainstring---array-of-rows) method, for running EXPLAIN queries without needing to supply bound parameters.
* Added a new [`preparedStatement.toString()`](https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3/blob/master/docs/api.md#tostring---string) method, for getting the expanded SQL of a prepared statement.
* Fix `SqliteError` cross-realm and `Error.isError` compatibility by @dennismutuku2005 in https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3/pull/1473

##### New Contributors
* @dennismutuku2005 made their first contribution in https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3/pull/1473

**Full Changelog**: https://github.com/WiseLibs/better-sqlite3/compare/v12.12.0...v13.0.0