Python, Sqlite, Sqlcipher: Very Poor Performance Processing First Request

My python service uses sqlite database encrypted with sqlcipher lib. There is a performance problem when processing very first request. Database is very small and simple, requests

Solution 1:

SQLCipher by default utilizes PBKDF2, currently set to 64,000 iterations to compute an encryption key, this process is slow by design. The key will be derived generally following the first SQL command to be executed after keying the database where an operation would touch the file. We provide general performance guidance on SQLCipher here.