Choosing an UltraLite data management component

UltraLite allows you to build a small-footprint relational database solution without requiring the additional overhead of setting up a separate database server. Instead, UltraLite programming interfaces use one of two library types.

UltraLite in-process runtime library

In UltraLite, the runtime and the application are part of the same process, which makes the database specific to the application. For all platforms, the runtime manages UltraLite databases and built-in synchronization operations. The UltraLite runtime can manage a maximum of 14 databases at any one time. Note that only one application can access a database at any given time.

On Windows or Windows Mobile, linking to the runtime requires that you use a specific import library/DLL pair than that of the engine. For details, see Compiling and linking your application.

If you require TLS-enabled synchronization, there are additional libraries you also require. See Deploy UltraLite with TLS-enabled synchronization.

On the iPhone, UltraLite is available only as an in-process runtime library. For information about building an UltraLite application using the iPhone SDK See UltraLite for C/C++ developers.

UltraLiteJ for BlackBerry and Java SE is provided as an in-process JAR file. For information about building an UltraLiteJ application using the BlackBerry JDE, see Developing UltraLiteJ applications.

UltraLite database engine (uleng12.exe)

The UltraLite engine is only available for Windows desktop, Windows Mobile, and Linux platforms. The engine is a separate executable, which supports concurrent access from multiple applications. Each application must use a client library to communicate with the UltraLite engine. The UltraLite engine requires more system resources than the UltraLite runtime and may yield lower performance when large amounts of data are moved between the client and database.

Connecting to the engine requires that you a different import library/DLL pair than that of the runtime.