FirebirdSQL

Available for download at FirebirdSQL site.

Replication - IBRepl package.

Development components - IBObjects for Delphi.

Administration tool - IBExpert Free Edition.

2006-08-12: Testing FirebirdSQL as an embedded database engine for .Net 2.0 applications.
The only problem noticed in the previous version of Firebird was that the available free database tools did not support Unicode. Now, with the .Net data provider I still get no Unicode characters. :(

Firebird is one of the best Open Source RDBMS. I will not go as far to say it is THE best, but it is my database of choice.

There is a text that compares the standard features of Open Source databases to those of Oracle as a standard. Check how Firebird scores according to my needs.

Embedded Server:

Here is a short log of how to make embedded server work, together with .Net data provider.

Unpack fbembed
Install .Net data provider
Add references to a .Net application
Use connection builder to create a connection string
Copy fbembed.dll to the application directory
Create a database and put it into application directory
Connect to the database from the application.