http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660I bumped into this problem a few years ago; it just doesn't seem to go away. http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2005/07/08/418474.aspx Time for AyendeDB! http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment24http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment24Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:36:27 GMTDerby http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment23http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment23Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:26:12 GMTFirebird is definitely adequate: I've used it for many years in large, heavily stressed, enterprise applications. I think its simplicity, stability, and performance are difficult to match. http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment22http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment22Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:49:06 GMTZODB works very well as an embedded persistent Python object store (handles mutli-threaded concurrency issues). Of course, it only works w/ Python, so ... http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment21http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment21Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:20:10 GMTKen, I am using FirebirdClient, which is pretty decent, as far as I understand. The issue is that a) no tools, b) no docs for even the SQL dialects, c) I managed to corrupt the state very easily. In general, it is a bad beginning, and I feel that while I could probably overcome it, there isn't a good reason to try, http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment20http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment20Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:26:55 GMTScott, Utterly not thread safe. Can leave the database locked and require a process restart to continue working. http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment19http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment19Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:25:26 GMTYou should really check out db4o (DB For Objects, www.db4o.com). They had really done a good job in the data persistance area. And there are many tools for it that run on .NET and Java. I have used it in commercial applications for Windows Desktop, ASP.NET Websites and Windows Mobile applications and never had a problem and they all got good performance in final users criteria. http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment18http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment18Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:36:13 GMTWhats with VistaDB "Express" "You can now use all the great power of VistaDB on your personal websites and other non commercial projects for FREE." http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment17http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment17Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:18:00 GMTI used firebird with a toy app I wrote (auto parsing of job posting and sending emails with resume attached). It was well behaved and performance was fine for what I was doing... until I decided to make it work with Mono too. I'm not sure if it was switching the db driver or some change I made, but I started getting weird results. I got a job and didn't really look at solving it. firebird is still my embedded db choice, but I'll be looking into suggestions from other commentors. http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment16http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment16Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:03:02 GMTPerst.NET: http://www.mcobject.com/perst/ http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment15http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment15Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:59:18 GMT@Ayende: is the need to bundle SQL Express is that bad? You'd gain an excelent tool for free. as for Firebird - it doesn't sound right. I had some experience with firebird, and apart from the fact that back then handling BLOBs was a PITA, it performed very well. Is it possible that you were using a dodgy .NET FB driver? http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment14http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment14Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:44:08 GMTI've never used it, but what's wrong with compact edition? http://www.microsoft.com/sql/editions/compact/default.mspx http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment13http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment13Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:43:00 GMTLouis, You need to install SQL Server Express for that, so there is installation overhead http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment12http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment12Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:28:24 GMTWhat is the managed wrapper that you use? Is it available? http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment11http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment11Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:17:51 GMTWe've been sadly coming to the same realization with some recent experiences as well. Looking forward to hearing what you conclude. Does "data source=.\sqlexpress;AttachDbFileName=path\file.mdf;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=True;" land too far from your requirements? Out of process, but it runs on a named db file, and with calling app credentials. Installation overhead -1. http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment10http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment10Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:55:28 GMTI'm using embed Firebird for a commercial application. It's really nice, easy to use and ease to upgrade to server database, except: No encryption for embed database. You event don't need to provide a password to connect to the database even though you've set the password when you create it. Application hang after exit. You have to explicitly call FbConnection.ClearAllPools. Put that in a destructor doesn't seem to always do the job. Anyway, I"m using NHibernate, so change of database engine will not be a hell. http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment9http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment9Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:44:15 GMTBamboo Prevalence? http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment8http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment8Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:04:11 GMTI've used Db4O in a few projects as well. And like it allot, the new version also has LINQ support. http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment7http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment7Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:03:48 GMTI used Firebird for a .net app that supported embedded and on server database. The tools and documentation suck, but it's not very hard to use http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment6http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment6Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:59:41 GMTDb4o? It plays with OSI compliant licenses and is optimistically concurrent by default. http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment5http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment5Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:43:57 GMTMaybe db4o will be good for u in case u don't mind OO db. http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment4http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment4Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:24:40 GMTHave you tried H2? It's a rewrite of the Java Hypersonic DB that SharpHSQL is based on by the original author. It works under .Net via IKVM. There is also an ADO.Net wrapper for it called H2Sharp. http://www.h2database.com/ http://www.h2database.com/html/frame.html?advanced.html%23microsoft_dot_net&main http://code.google.com/p/h2sharp/ http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment3http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment3Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:21:22 GMTHave you looked at SharpHSQL? http://www.codeplex.com/sharphsql http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment2http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment2Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:13:24 GMTI'm using Berkeley DB to store diagnostic data (several Gb at month), the way to C# is C -> C++/CLI (managed API wrapper) -> C# (client). http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment1http://ayende.com/3400/in-search-of-an-embedded-db#comment1Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:27:28 GMT