No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.
Oracle Berkeley DB Logo

Oracle Berkeley DB Reviews

Vendor: Oracle
3.6 out of 5
Badge Leader
Leave a review

What is Oracle Berkeley DB?

Oracle Berkeley DB provides the best open source embeddable databases allowing developers the choice of SQL, Key/Value, XML/XQuery or Java Object storage for their data model. At its core is a fast, scalable, transactional database engine with proven reliability and availability. Berkeley DB comes three versions: Berkeley DB, Berkeley DB Java Edition, and Berkeley DB XML.

Get the Embedded Database Buyer's Guide and find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Berkeley DB, InfluxDB, SQLite and more!
Oracle Berkeley DB is the #2 ranked solution in top Non-Relational Databases and #7 ranked solution in Top Embedded Database Systems. PeerSpot users give Oracle Berkeley DB an average rating of 7.2 out of 10. Oracle Berkeley DB is most commonly compared to InfluxDB: Oracle Berkeley DB vs InfluxDB. Oracle Berkeley DB is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 57% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a university, accounting for 15% of all views.
Buyer's Guide
Embedded Database
March 2026
Get the category report
Helped 885,311 peers since 2012

Featured Oracle Berkeley DB reviews

Read more reviews

Oracle Berkeley DB mindshare

Product category:
Embedded Database
As of March 2026, the mindshare of Oracle Berkeley DB in the Embedded Database category stands at 5.4%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded Database Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Oracle Berkeley DB5.4%
SQLite20.4%
Firebird SQL15.9%
Other58.300000000000004%
Embedded Database
 
 
Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

Oracle Berkeley DB offers easy key-value storage and fast response times. It incorporates ACID transactions, a rarity in NoSQL databases. Users appreciate its ability to function without a server by embedding within applications. Features like transactional data storage, concurrent data handling, file-based deployment, and replication provide significant benefits. Consistently praised for stability and performance, it helps avoid performance issues found in other systems. Usage includes Oracle RAC and DBA tools in production environments.
  • "This product helped us to develop a performance-critical DB backend module in the healthcare domain."
  • "We always had predictability, and by using a custom-built data service layer with plugins, it provided us a lot of scalability, fast turnaround for our fast-moving business requirement and huge data."
  • "As a key/value store, Oracle BDB is simple to use, and it provides ACID transactions for companies that cannot afford eventual consistency."

Room for Improvement

Oracle Berkeley DB users highlight several areas for improvement, including the lack of bulk retrieval support in the Java edition and high memory consumption when managing large datasets. Concurrent environmental use often leads to corruption, and page-level locking during updates can cause additional issues. Users would appreciate a more intuitive interface and posit a need for a reactive programming driver, particularly for Java. Technical support services could be enhanced to improve user satisfaction.
  • "Environment corruption is a common problem found when a DB environment is used by more than one process on a machine at a time."
  • "There were some mid-term small releases that caused database crashes, but this was later fixed."
  • "Memory usage becomes a problem when the number of entries stored within the key/value store are quite high (hundreds of millions)."

Pricing

  • "There is a need to pay for the licenses and features of the tool."
  • "I rate the product's pricing a five out of ten."

Deployment

Setting up Oracle Berkeley DB as an embedded database is considered easy by many users, though it requires careful attention to documentation for optimal performance. Deploying can take 15-30 minutes. Users found the process straightforward despite some confusion with the user interface. Company-level programming encountered no issues, successfully integrating the database and drivers. Initial steps were noted as clearly structured, making the setup phase manageable without significant complications.
These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.
Download our Embedded Database Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
15%
Government
10%
Educational Organization
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Hospitality Company
5%
Media Company
5%
Logistics Company
4%
Energy/Utilities Company
4%
Performing Arts
2%
Wellness & Fitness Company
1%
Construction Company
1%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
1%
Healthcare Company
1%
Legal Firm
1%
Marketing Services Firm
1%
Non Tech Company
1%
Non Profit
1%
Outsourcing Company
1%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
1%
Retailer
1%
Transportation Company
1%

Compare Oracle Berkeley DB with alternative products

Go!

Learn more about Oracle Berkeley DB

The Oracle Berkeley DB family of high performance, self-contained databases provides developers with a fast, transactional database solution with a track record of reliability, unmatched scalability and five-nines (99.999%) or better availability. Oracle Berkeley DB is well suited to Independent Software Vendors, device and equipment manufacturers, and enterprises or software companies building solutions which need a data management component. The Oracle Berkeley DB family of products provides fast, local persistence with zero oversight administration.

Customers and end-users will experience an application that simply works, reliably manages data, scales under extreme load, and requires zero oversight in deployment. Your development team can focus on your application and be confident that Berkeley DB will manage your application’s data.

For more information on Oracle Berkeley DB, visit Oracle.com

Oracle Berkeley DB was previously known as Berkeley DB.

Oracle Berkeley DB customers

Safe Water Kenya

Related questions

  • 106
What would be the best application SQL optimizer over the WAN?
  • 18
When evaluating Embedded Database Software, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
  • 55
What exactly can one do with embedded Oracle Database?
  • 29
Why is Embedded Database Software important for companies?

Product Categories

Product Categories
Embedded Database
Non-Relational Databases

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons
InfluxDB vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
InfluxDB vs Oracle Berkeley DB
SQLite vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
SQLite vs Oracle Berkeley DB
Oracle Database In-Memory vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
Oracle Database In-Memory vs Oracle Berkeley DB
Google Cloud Bigtable vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
Google Cloud Bigtable vs Oracle Berkeley DB
DuckDB vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
DuckDB vs Oracle Berkeley DB
IBM IMS vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
IBM IMS vs Oracle Berkeley DB
Claris FileMaker vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
Claris FileMaker vs Oracle Berkeley DB
Actian Versant FastObjects vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
Actian Versant FastObjects vs Oracle Berkeley DB
Amazon SimpleDB vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
Amazon SimpleDB vs Oracle Berkeley DB
InterSystems Caché vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
InterSystems Caché vs Oracle Berkeley DB
Adabas vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
Adabas vs Oracle Berkeley DB
TileDB vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
TileDB vs Oracle Berkeley DB
ENEA Polyhedra vs Oracle Berkeley DB Logo
ENEA Polyhedra vs Oracle Berkeley DB
See all alternatives
 
Oracle Berkeley DB Reviews Summary
Author infoRatingReview Summary
Solution & Software System Architect at Shaparak4.0I use Oracle Berkeley DB for production projects due to its stability and performance, particularly in paging. However, I would like a reactive programming driver for Java, as this limitation hinders integration with technologies like Project Reactor from Spring.
Junior Network Engineer at Auston University3.0I previously used MySQL before Oracle Berkeley DB. While I find the database effective, the interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly, enhancing overall usability.
Project Lead at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees3.5I found this product good for performance and concurrency, but faced environment corruption and page-level locking. Setup was straightforward, and support excellent. I recommend prototyping to satisfy performance and concurrency requirements.
Sr. Specialist Technology at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees4.0I valued its file-based deployment, replication, and handling of FIXML data for scalability and fast turnaround. Despite minor release issues and slower support, its open-source nature and customizability were superior to alternatives, leaving me satisfied overall.
Project Leader at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees3.5We found Oracle BDB an easy-to-use, embedded NoSQL key-value store with ACID. However, we faced significant memory issues with large datasets and a lack of bulk retrieval, eventually leading us to switch to Voldemort.