Heuristic:Langchain ai Langgraph Checkpointer Selection Guide

Knowledge Sources	LangGraph LangGraph Persistence
Domains	Persistence, Architecture, Production
Last Updated	2026-02-11 14:00 GMT

Overview

Decision framework for choosing between InMemorySaver, SqliteSaver, and PostgresSaver based on deployment context and concurrency requirements.

Description

LangGraph offers three built-in checkpoint backends: `InMemorySaver` (in-process dictionary), `SqliteSaver` / `AsyncSqliteSaver` (file-based), and `PostgresSaver` / `AsyncPostgresSaver` (server-based). Each has distinct trade-offs in durability, concurrency support, and operational complexity. The `Checkpointer` type also supports `True` (inherit from parent), `False` (disable), and `None` (no checkpointing) for subgraph configurations.

Usage

Use this heuristic when deciding which checkpoint backend to configure for your LangGraph application. The choice affects durability, scalability, and operational requirements.

The Insight (Rule of Thumb)

InMemorySaver: Use only for testing, prototyping, and unit tests. Data is lost when the process exits. Zero operational overhead.
SqliteSaver: Use for single-user local development or lightweight applications. Sequential write limitation makes it unsuitable for concurrent multi-user workloads.
PostgresSaver / AsyncPostgresSaver: Use for production deployments. Supports concurrent reads and writes, connection pooling, and durable persistence across restarts.
No checkpointer (`None`): Acceptable for stateless, single-pass workflows that do not need interrupts, time-travel, or cross-invocation memory.
Trade-off: Moving from InMemorySaver to PostgresSaver adds operational complexity (database management) but gains durability and concurrency.

Reasoning

The checkpoint backend is the single most important infrastructure decision for LangGraph deployments. Without a checkpointer, features like human-in-the-loop interrupts, execution resumption, state history, and cross-thread memory are unavailable. `InMemorySaver` satisfies the interface but provides no durability. `SqliteSaver` provides durability but has a single-writer limitation that causes contention under concurrent load. PostgreSQL is the recommended production backend because it handles concurrent connections via `psycopg-pool`, supports async operations, and persists data across process restarts.

The type system enforces valid checkpointer values through the `Checkpointer` type union and the `ensure_valid_checkpointer()` validation function.

Code Evidence

Checkpointer type definition from `libs/langgraph/langgraph/types.py:73-79`:

Checkpointer = None | bool | BaseCheckpointSaver
"""Type of the checkpointer to use for a subgraph.

- `True` enables persistent checkpointing for this subgraph.
- `False` disables checkpointing, even if the parent graph has a checkpointer.
- `None` inherits checkpointer from the parent graph.
"""

Checkpointer validation from `libs/langgraph/langgraph/types.py:82-92`:

def ensure_valid_checkpointer(checkpointer: Checkpointer) -> Checkpointer:
    if checkpointer not in (None, True, False) and not isinstance(
        checkpointer, BaseCheckpointSaver
    ):
        raise TypeError(
            "Invalid checkpointer provided. Expected an instance of "
            "`BaseCheckpointSaver`, `True`, `False`, or `None`. "
            f"Received {type(checkpointer).__name__!s}. "
            "Pass a proper saver (e.g., InMemorySaver, AsyncPostgresSaver)."
        )
    return checkpointer

Related Pages

Page Connections

Double-click a node to navigate. Hold to expand connections.

Principle

Implementation

Heuristic

Environment