What are the best lightweight relational databases?

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Nov 22, 2021

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9 Options Considered

Best lightweight relational databases	Price	Platforms	Technology
-- PostgreSQL	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD	C
-- SQLite	-	Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, IPhone	C
-- MySQL	-	-	C/C++
-- LiteDB	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, Android	C#
-- Firebird	-	Windows, Linux, Mac	C++

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score 17 · Answer 1

PostgreSQL

Top Con

Not suited for small apps

Because of its complexity and power, it may be an overkill to use PostgreSQL in small applications that will not make use of its full power. See More

Top Pro

High performance

PostgreSQL performance increases with each release, this is also proven by many benchmark tests. Notable performance features include: As PostgreSQL only supports one storage engine, it has been able to integrate and optimise it and with the rest of the database. This has resulted in multiple benefits such as the ability to allow different transaction types to co-exist efficiently without the need to select storage engine types once for each table ahead of time. On the fly data compression resulting in less IO required for reading. Asynchronous + synchronous Replication. PostgreSQL supports an asynchronous API for use by client applications. It is reported to increase performance by up to 40% and is not supported by MySQL. Designed to scale very well with large numbers of cores at high concurrency levels. See More

DaringHanwasuit's Experience

Started setting up a SQL-sever for personal use. C/C++ -binding simply worked and the available interfaces are easy to use. For larger databases with a higher number of write operations it should not be forgotten to set the VACUUM and ANALYZE threshold properly, otherwise performance might decrease on the long run. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD

Technology:C

JSON?:Yes

Top Pro

Support for JSON data type

JSON data can be stored as a column with optional indexes. In 9.4 (upcoming at the time of this writing), JSONB will be a binary version of JSON that will save space. It's like the best of the NO-SQL world without having to give up ACID and Relationships. This means that cascading deletes can be done in a single Transaction across multiple JSON documents. See More

Top Pro

Support for geographic objects

PostgreSQL can be extended to have geographic object support through PostGIS and allows for location queries to be run through SQL. See More

Top Pro

Support Perl and Python for coding stored procedures

Postgres supports popular languages for coding stored procedures, such as Perl and Python. So, you can fairly easy transform just DB-server to reliable Service with complex business logic. See More

Top Pro

Actively developed

Regular fixes and features are released. See More

Top Pro

Fully ACID compliant

PostgreSQL is known to have a very holistic approach to robustness and data integrity which is reflected by it being fully ACID compliant. PostgreSQL has always been strict about making sure data is valid before allowing it into the database, and there is no way for a client to bypass those checks. Depending on your requirements, ACID compliance might be important. See More

Top Pro

All platforms

Support for Windows, Linux, Mac and BSD. See More

Top Pro

Portable version

Portable version available on GitHub and SourceForge. See More

Top Pro

Strong community

PostgreSQL has a strong community backing it, with guides, tutorials, and support for any kind of problem a developer may have. See More

Top Pro

Quick development

The DB is developing very dynamically. Moving almost all our projects from Oracle to PostgreSQL See More

Top Pro

Multiple node packages available

There are many packages (like Sequelize) that integrate deeply with the features Postgres offers. See More

Top Pro

Easy to install

Much easier to install and distribute with your application than Oracle or SQL Server. See More

See All

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score 8 · Answer 2

SQLite

Top Pro

Reliable

With less complication, there is less to go wrong. See More

Top Con

Some SQL features are missing

SQLite is made to be extremely lightweight and portable, but it still uses SQL. However, some SQL features such as RIGHT OUTER JOIN and FOR EACH STATEMENT are missing. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, IPhone

Technology:C

Top Pro

Not unnecessarily fiddly

Top Pro

Small

SQLite is also only 350KiB in size. See More

Top Pro

Great language support

SQLite has bindings for a large number of programming languages, including BASIC, Delphi, C, C#, C++, Clipper//Harbour, Common Lisp, Curl, D, Free Pascal, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, Livecode, Lua, newLisp, Objective-C (on OS X and iOS), OCaml, Perl, PHP, Pike, PureBasic, Python, R, REALbasic, REBOL, Ruby, Scheme, Smalltalk, Tcl, Visual Basic. See More

Top Pro

Portable

An SQLite database is a single ordinary disk file that can be located anywhere in the directory hierarchy. It works by sending requests to a single file where all the data is kept instead of communicating with a hosted database which gives access to an interface by making use of sockets and ports. The file format used is also cross-platform, so can easily be migrated to various machines. This makes SQLite extremely portable throughout different applications, all that's needed to transfer the whole database is to make a copy of the file. See More

Top Pro

Great for testing and first stages of development

Because of it's ability to scale and with the portability that a single-file database gives you without losing much of the power and features that SQL gives developers, it's a great choice for testing applications and for the early stages of development when the workload and the data that needs to be stored is not that large. See More

Top Pro

Self-contained

SQLite is largely self-contained. It requires very minimal support from external libraries or from the operating system. See More

Top Pro

Zero configuration

There is literally no configuration required to get SQL lite up and running. This is mainly due to SQLite being serverless, there is no separate server process to install, setup, configure, initialize, manage, and troubleshoot. See More

See All

score 4 · Answer 3

MySQL

score 2 · Answer 4

LiteDB

Top Pro

Open source

C# code available on GitHub. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

NoSQL database for .NET intended use is for simple applications (web, mobile, or desktop) where you need only one data file per user. LiteDB is a server-less database, you don’t need to install it in your system. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Android

Technology:C#

Top Pro

Single DLL

single DLL (less than 350kb). See More

Top Pro

LINQ support

See All

score 15 · Answer 5

Firebird

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Technology:C++

score 5 · Answer 6

H2 Database Engine

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score 3 · Answer 7

DuckDB

Top Pro

C++11, no dependencies, single file build

APIs for Python/R/Java/… See More

Top Pro

In-process

Top Pro

Free & Open Source

Permissive MIT License. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 8

Oracle Database

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score 1 · Answer 9

iBoxDB

Top Pro

Fast

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Android

Top Pro

.NET and Java dual engines

Top Pro

Lightweight ORM included

Top Pro

Mixed acid transaction

Top Pro

Lightweight SQL

Top Pro

Lightweight table design

Top Pro

Lightweight footprint 300kb

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9 Options Considered

My Recommendation for PostgreSQL

My Recommendation for PostgreSQL

Not suited for small apps

High performance

Support for JSON data type

Support for geographic objects

Support Perl and Python for coding stored procedures

Actively developed

Fully ACID compliant

All platforms

Portable version

Strong community

Quick development

Multiple node packages available

Easy to install

My Recommendation for SQLite

My Recommendation for SQLite

Reliable

Some SQL features are missing

Not unnecessarily fiddly

Small

Great language support

Portable

Great for testing and first stages of development

Self-contained

Zero configuration

My Recommendation for MySQL

My Recommendation for MySQL

My Recommendation for LiteDB

My Recommendation for LiteDB

Open source

Single DLL

LINQ support

My Recommendation for Firebird

My Recommendation for Firebird

My Recommendation for H2 Database Engine

My Recommendation for H2 Database Engine

My Recommendation for DuckDB

My Recommendation for DuckDB

C++11, no dependencies, single file build

In-process

Free & Open Source

My Recommendation for Oracle Database

My Recommendation for Oracle Database

My Recommendation for iBoxDB

My Recommendation for iBoxDB

Fast

.NET and Java dual engines

Lightweight ORM included

Mixed acid transaction

Lightweight SQL

Lightweight table design

Lightweight footprint 300kb

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