Which database would you recommend to use with C# (.NET) application?

Question

I\'m developing a little project plan and I came to a point when I need to decide what local databse system to use.

The input data is going to be stored on webserver

Answer 1

I don't know of a good in-process database that is fully syntax and type compatible with MySQL. With that in mind, you have three options:

1. Choose something like SQLlite, Access, or SQL Server Compact. The problem is that you'll end up writing some complex conversion logic with any of those and have to write all your queries twice.
2. Install MySQL locally. Then you have to put up with having a full database server running on your local system. You definitely want to avoid this for anything you'll ship to a customer, but for your own use it might be ok. Fortunately, MySQL doesn't use as many resources as some other modern database servers, but this is still less than ideal.
3. Switch to SQL Server Express edition at the server and use SQL Server Compact at the client. It's just as cheap as MySQL (maybe even cheaper, since you're supposed purchase MySQL for any commercial use). Considering that you're using C# at the client end, you might want to use it with ASP.Net at the server side as well. And if you're using ASP.Net server side, then it's not difficult to find a host that offers SQL Server Express. Now your databases are type compatible and any query you write for you client is guaranteed to work for your server as well.

IMO, one of the big strengths of the MS database stack (excluding access) is that they have a compatible solution for whatever you're doing all the way from the desktop up to multi-datacenter clusters. If your app's scale changes or you need to ship data between two different classes of app, your database layer is taken care of.