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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
14th
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
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Relational Databases Tools category, the mindshare of LocalDB is 2.2%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 6.3%, down from 9.1% 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 initial setup is very straightforward. The guidelines are very easy to follow. Maintenance is very easy and requires very little manpower."
"The most valuable feature of LocalDBis the connection between the application and DB."
"The solution is fast."
"LocalDB is an excellent solution for learners, beginners, and projects of negligible size; it is very good."
"The initial setup was simple."
"It is an absolutely stable solution."
"The solution is very stable. It was originally built under MySQL. It has a similar level of stability."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is a relational database, which is fairly reliable...It is a stable solution."
"It is a scalable solution. It easily scales up and scales down."
"We like the easy way that we can collect data from other databases."
"The product has good documentation and you can find many examples online."
"I would say that for most use cases it works fine."
"The most valuable feature is that it uses multiple cores, which is better than some of the other databases."
 

Cons

"The internal connection features of LocalDB could improve."
"The initial setup is complex and requires a skilled person."
"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 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."
"MariaDB can improve by adding more features. There are a lot of features, which are available in Oracle, and which are not available in MariaDB. We hope they will introduce the features soon."
"An improvement would be scaling it up to the levels of Oracle, especially when it comes to resilience, so that we can do higher transactions for two databases or power our operation."
"The stability could always continue to be improved upon."
"The solution is not scalable."
"There is not much support available."
"Integration with AWS could be improved."
"The price could be less expensive."
"I would like to see more compatibility going forward. This would help if there is a need to change databases."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The fees are fair."
"The licensing cost is too high for LocalDB."
"The price of this solution represents a very good compromise between the cost and what it offers."
"When it comes to MariaDB, it should have a more cost-effective license."
"We pay for a yearly license."
"MariaDB is an open-source software, meaning I don't need to pay for the product."
"It is free of charge."
"The tool is open-source."
"I used the open-source version, which is available free of charge."
"The cost is quite good. You can have the open source, free version, which has adequate capacity."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
11%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.