Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

LocalDB vs MariaDB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

LocalDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
15th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MariaDB
Ranking in Relational Databases Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of LocalDB is 2.7%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 6.8%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
The database always has structured data, like rows, columns, and bases
LocalDB is an excellent solution for learners, beginners, and projects of negligible size; it is very good. Any startup can use a local database to start. Once they grow beyond its limits, they can migrate to a MS SQL server that's also available on-premises. I rate it ten out of ten.
KumarManish - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, cost-effective, and integrates seamlessly with other products
We had planned for an RDBMS version and not NoSQL. We use MariaDB Galera Cluster. It's a good product. It is cheap, scalable, performs well, and is efficient. We use GCP’s BigQuery for machine learning. We must follow the best practices of the tool. We missed some best practices like the storage engine and InnoDB. It was very difficult to identify why we were having performance issues. Then, we realized that some of our tables were still on MyISAM, the default storage engine. When we switched it back to the InnoDB, it was very smooth. InnoDB is the recommended one. We must follow the best practices given in the documentation during the initial setup. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of LocalDBis the connection between the application and DB."
"The initial setup was simple."
"LocalDB is an excellent solution for learners, beginners, and projects of negligible size; it is very good."
"The solution is fast."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. The guidelines are very easy to follow. Maintenance is very easy and requires very little manpower."
"The solution's features have effectively met our operational requirements as a standard SQL database."
"The solution's high availability is its most valuable aspect."
"MariaDB is stable and the initial setup is straightforward."
"Visual Studio offers unit testing integration and extensive searching capabilities."
"MariaDB has a straightforward initial setup with easy-to-understand documentation."
"The stability of MariaDB is good, it has high availability."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is an open-source product and offers its users great online community support."
"MariaDB is easy to install and is stable and scalable."
 

Cons

"The ALM features can be improved, but the database by itself is reliable."
"It is only for a small amount of data. Local DB is made for the purpose of small-volume optics."
"The internal connection features of LocalDB could improve."
"The solution needs to create a management tool. Right now, the solution has tools for creating a local installation, but it's too simplistic. We need something that's a bit more complex so that we can extend the tools with our scripts."
"The initial setup is complex and requires a skilled person."
"MariaDB could be improved by adding more automation."
"The difficult part related to the product stems not from the tool itself but is related to learning how to implement the product in the right way without creating any wrong configuration that could cause security issues or performance issues."
"The ability to create stored procedures in MariaDB is an area where the tool lacks a bit."
"I would like to see a better user interface which would make the tool less complex."
"It would be good if they can maybe improve the mass import in the database. Currently, for importing a large number of data, we create a CSV file and upload all the things in the system. The system does not activate them by default. We have to do this manually. This may be due to the version we are using, but this is something we would like to see improved."
"There is not much support available."
"I'd like to see improved materialized views, like the ability to save select queries. This feature is missing in MariaDB compared to other relational databases like Oracle and SQL Server."
"The product needs more features and more functionality. It's imperative that it supports more platforms, and supports more operating systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is too high for LocalDB."
"The fees are fair."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price since there are some support costs involved, even though it isn't an open-source solution."
"The cost is quite good. You can have the open source, free version, which has adequate capacity."
"MariaDB is an open-source software, meaning I don't need to pay for the product."
"It is an open-source solution."
"MariaDB is open-source and self-hosted."
"The solution is free, but if you want the enterprise version you will need to pay for some licenses but the cost is less than other solutions, such as Oracle."
"I used the open-source version, which is available free of charge."
"This is an open source solution with no licensing fees."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Relational Databases Tools solutions are best for your needs.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with LocalDB?
Technically speaking, you don't need to get any updates because it's not online. It's on-premise. So once it is installed, then you get a desktop-grade version. But the purpose of LocalDB is not th...
What is your primary use case for LocalDB?
There were multiple systems, some planned, like the mainframe, the gold database, a website, and a manual Excel spreadsheet. These were the various data sources, and we wanted to bring everything i...
What do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
I have found the price of commercial MariaDB to be pretty steep, although not as high as Oracle. Customers often prefer the Community Edition because it's free.
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
The only potential area for improvement could be the pricing model, which might benefit from being more flexible or a bit cheaper.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

AstraZeneca, Kienzle Automotive GmbH, Kodak Alaris, Unilever, Floatel International and Kongsberg Maritime, MyHero
Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Find out what your peers are saying about LocalDB vs. MariaDB and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.