Do you have a database.sqlite in the database directory?
Does the webserver have read and write access to it?
Just a guess here but when you run it manually (from the command line) you do that as your user but when you access the route with the browser the webserver is trying to access it and it most likely does not have the correct permissions.
Are you using a *nix (linux/unix/MacOs) machine or are you running Wind0ze?
Yes, i have it. both are the same project, using a local webserver on windows 10 with "php artisan serve". so i hadn't touch on permission configs, how to see it
The easiest would be to ssh into your DO-box and go to your document root and type pwd.
It will print your current working directory.
Just add the output and the pwd command + /database/database.sqlite to your env file and you should be good to go. The path migth look something like this
/var/www/html/public/database/database.sqlite
just a sidenote.
I would most likely not use sqlite in production but rather use a MySQL/MariaDB database.
It of course depends on how much data you are going to store in the database.