What are the best lightweight relational databases?

6

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11

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Oct 6, 2018

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

6 Options Considered

Best lightweight relational databases	Price	JSON?	Last Updated
-- PostgreSQL	-	Yes	Oct 6, 2018
-- SQLite	-	–	Aug 28, 2017
-- LiteDB	Free	–	Oct 6, 2018
-- MySQL	-	–	Aug 28, 2017
-- H2 Database Engine	-	–	Aug 17, 2015

PostgreSQL

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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 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

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

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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

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

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Portable version

Portable version available on GitHub and SourceForge. See More

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All platforms

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

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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

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Actively developed

Regular fixes and features are released. See More

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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

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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

Multiple node packages available

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

SQLite

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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

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

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

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

MySQL

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H2 Database Engine

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Firebird

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