Redb
An embedded key-value database in pure Rust with ACID transactions and high performance.
What is Redb?
Redb is an embedded key-value database written in pure Rust, designed for simplicity, portability, and high performance. It provides ACID compliance and stores data in copy-on-write B-trees for reliability and efficiency, offering a stable file format with minimal dependencies.
Rust developers needing a lightweight, reliable embedded database for applications like caching, session storage, or local data persistence, particularly those prioritizing ACID transactions and crash safety.
Developers choose redb for its combination of ACID compliance, zero-copy API for efficient data access, and crash-safe design, all in a pure Rust implementation with performance competitive to established databases like LMDB and RocksDB.
Overview
An embedded key-value database in pure Rust
Use Cases
Best For
- Embedded applications requiring ACID-compliant transactions for data integrity.
- Rust projects needing a simple, portable key-value store with minimal dependencies.
- Scenarios demanding crash-safe storage by default to prevent data loss.
- High-concurrency environments leveraging MVCC for non-blocking reads and writes.
- Applications benefiting from transaction savepoints and rollbacks for error handling.
- Use cases where a zero-copy, thread-safe API similar to BTreeMap is advantageous for performance.
Not Ideal For
- Applications requiring complex relational queries or SQL support
- High-volume batch write scenarios where RocksDB or fjall offer better performance
- Distributed systems needing horizontal scalability beyond a single node
Pros & Cons
Pros
Offers a thread-safe, BTreeMap-based interface that enables efficient data access without unnecessary copying, as highlighted in the zero-copy feature description.
Provides fully ACID-compliant transactions with MVCC support, ensuring data integrity for concurrent readers and writers without blocking.
Designed to be crash-safe by default, preventing data loss on unexpected failures, which is a core feature emphasized in the README.
Benchmarks show redb performs similarly to top embedded stores like lmdb and rocksdb, with strengths in individual writes as detailed in the performance table.
Cons
In operations like bulk load and random reads, redb is slower than lmdb, as shown in benchmarks, indicating areas where it may not be optimal.
Running tests and benchmarks requires extra dependencies like cargo-deny and libclang-dev, which complicates setup compared to simpler embedded databases.
As a newer project, redb has a smaller community and fewer third-party tools than established alternatives like RocksDB, potentially affecting long-term support.
Frequently Asked Questions
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