Is TinyDB the right choice?

Why using TinyDB?

TinyDB is:

  • tiny: The current source code has 800 lines of code (+ 500 lines tests) what makes about 100 KB. For comparison: Buzhug has about 2000 lines of code (w/o tests), CodernityDB has about 8000 lines of code (w/o tests).

  • document oriented: Like MongoDB, you can store any document (represented as dict) in TinyDB.

  • optimized for your happiness: TinyDB is designed to be simple and fun to use. It's not bloated and has a simple and clean API.

  • written in pure Python: TinyDB neither needs an external server (as e.g. PyMongo) nor any packages from PyPI. Just run pip install tinydb and you're ready to go.

  • easily extensible: You can easily extend TinyDB by writing new storages or modify the behaviour of storages with Middlewares. TinyDB provides Middlewares for caching and concurrency handling.

  • nearly 100% covered with tests: If you don't count that __repr__ methods and some abstract methods are not tested, TinyDB has a code coverage of 100%.

In short: If you need a simple database with a clean API that just works without lots of configuration, TinyDB might be the right choice for you.

Compatibility

TinyDB has been tested with Python 2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3 and pypy.

Why not using TinyDB?

  • You need advanced features like multiple indexes, a HTTP server, relationships, or similar.

  • You are really concerned about high performance and need a high speed database.

To put it plainly: TinyDB is designed to be tiny and fun to use. If you need advanced features/high performance, TinyDB is the wrong database for you – consider using databases like Buzhug, CodernityDB or MongoDB.