LiteDB - A .NET NoSQL Document Store in a single data file

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LiteDB is a small, fast and lightweight .NET NoSQL embedded database.

• Serverless NoSQL Document Store
• Simple API, similar to MongoDB
• 100% C# code for .NET 4.5 / NETStandard 1.3/2.0 in a single DLL (less than 450kb)
• Thread-safe
• ACID with full transaction support
• Data recovery after write failure (WAL log file)
• Datafile encryption using DES (AES) cryptography
• Map your POCO classes to BsonDocument using attributes or fluent mapper API
• Store files and stream data (like GridFS in MongoDB)
• Single data file storage (like SQLite)
• Index document fields for fast search
• LINQ support for queries
• SQL-Like commands to access/transform data
• LiteDB Studio - Nice UI for data access
• Open source and free for everyone - including commercial use
• Install from NuGet: Install-Package LiteDB

New v5

• New storage engine
• No locks for read operations (multiple readers)
• Write locks per collection (multiple writers)
• Internal/System collections
• New SQL-Like Syntax
• New query engine (support projection, sort, filter, query)
• Partial document load (root level)
• and much, much more!

Lite.Studio

New UI to manage and visualize your database:

Documentation

Visit the Wiki for full documentation. For simplified chinese version, check here.

LiteDB Community

Help LiteDB grow its user community by answering this simple survey

How to use LiteDB

A quick example for storing and searching documents:

// Create your POCO class
public class Customer
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }
    public string[] Phones { get; set; }
    public bool IsActive { get; set; }
}

// Open database (or create if doesn't exist)
using(var db = new LiteDatabase(@"MyData.db"))
{
    // Get customer collection
    var col = db.GetCollection<Customer>("customers");

    // Create your new customer instance
    var customer = new Customer
    { 
        Name = "John Doe", 
        Phones = new string[] { "8000-0000", "9000-0000" }, 
        Age = 39,
        IsActive = true
    };

    // Create unique index in Name field
    col.EnsureIndex(x => x.Name, true);

    // Insert new customer document (Id will be auto-incremented)
    col.Insert(customer);

    // Update a document inside a collection
    customer.Name = "Joana Doe";

    col.Update(customer);

    // Use LINQ to query documents (with no index)
    var results = col.Find(x => x.Age > 20);
}

Using fluent mapper and cross document reference for more complex data models

// DbRef to cross references
public class Order
{
    public ObjectId Id { get; set; }
    public DateTime OrderDate { get; set; }
    public Address ShippingAddress { get; set; }
    public Customer Customer { get; set; }
    public List<Product> Products { get; set; }
}        

// Re-use mapper from global instance
var mapper = BsonMapper.Global;

// "Products" and "Customer" are from other collections (not embedded document)
mapper.Entity<Order>()
    .DbRef(x => x.Customer, "customers")   // 1 to 1/0 reference
    .DbRef(x => x.Products, "products")    // 1 to Many reference
    .Field(x => x.ShippingAddress, "addr"); // Embedded sub document
            
using(var db = new LiteDatabase("MyOrderDatafile.db"))
{
    var orders = db.GetCollection<Order>("orders");
        
    // When query Order, includes references
    var query = orders
        .Include(x => x.Customer)
        .Include(x => x.Products) // 1 to many reference
        .Find(x => x.OrderDate <= DateTime.Now);

    // Each instance of Order will load Customer/Products references
    foreach(var order in query)
    {
        var name = order.Customer.Name;
        ...
    }
}

Where to use?

• Desktop/local small applications
• Application file format
• Small web sites/applications
• One database per account/user data store

Plugins

• A GUI viewer tool: https://github.com/falahati/LiteDBViewer (v4)
• A GUI editor tool: https://github.com/JosefNemec/LiteDbExplorer (v4)
• Lucene.NET directory: https://github.com/sheryever/LiteDBDirectory
• LINQPad support: https://github.com/adospace/litedbpad
• F# Support: https://github.com/Zaid-Ajaj/LiteDB.FSharp
• UltraLiteDB (for Unity or IOT): https://github.com/rejemy/UltraLiteDB

Changelog

Change details for each release are documented in the release notes.

Code Signing

LiteDB is digitally signed courtesy of SignPath

License

MIT