Flutter databases in 2023 – an overview

Flutter databases are databases specifically designed to give Flutter / Dart apps fast data persistence. Other databases can be used depending on the database and use case, but in our experience Flutter databases are easier to use and faster in Flutter/Dart apps. Note: Because “Dart” is such an ambiguous term, “Flutter database” is the established terminology (even though from a tech perspective it is not a great name).

As a Flutter app developer, selecting the right local database is important. After a market overview and terminology, we’ll compare the most popular options (ObjectBox, sqflite, Drift, Floor, Isar, Sembast, Realm) in a matrix.

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Mobile databases: SQLite and SQLite alternatives for Android and iOS

UPDATED 2023 A long time ago at Droidcon Berlin, we noticed a lot of questions around databases. Many people weren’t aware of SQLite alternatives and the differentiation between databases and Object-Relational Mappers (ORMs). Therefore, we followed up with an overview of the local database landscape (Edge Databases), which we maintain ever since. We just updated the comparison table in June 2023.

Why use a local database on mobile?

There are some advantages associated with using a local database (Edge Database):

  • Always works: full offline modus for apps that depend on stored data
  • Manageable costs: Frugal on bandwidth for apps that depend on stored data
  • Speed: fast and predictable performance independent from network availability
  • Data Privacy: personal data can be stored with the user, where some say they belong)

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ORM FAQ

SQLite access with an ORM – FAQ

What is an Object-Relational-Mapper (ORM)?

An ORM is a layer between the relational SQLite database and the object-oriented app code. The ORM allows the developer to use the database without the need to transform objects into a format suited for the relational database.

Do I need an ORM to work with SQLite?

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keep your data safe with SQLCipher

Database Encryption for Android N: SQLCipher 3.5

SQLCipher 3.5.0 with support for Android N was released yesterday. Previous versions of SQLCipher linked to non-public Android libraries, a practice Google warned about earlier. Android N is getting stricter about linking to platform libraries. To comply with Android N, the SQLCipher authors did the necessary changes and also did a major code clean up. This results in a massive code reduction, as you can see in the following table:

SQLCipher 3.4

SQLCipher 3.5

AAR size

7.15 MB

2.87 MB

armeabi-v7a .so size

2.50 MB

1.43 MB

ICU size compressed / uncompressed

2.19 MB / 6.73 MB

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That's really good news. Just by using the new version 3.5.0 of SQLCipher, you can reduce your APK size (and build/deployment time). Not just the binary .so files got smaller, also the big "icudt46l.dat" file was removed in 3.5.0.

To see the effect in an app, we took the greenDAO example app and compared the resulting sizes. Of course, the version using built-in SQLite is by far the smallest, but your APK may lose 4.4 MB if you were using a previous version of SQLCipher:

SQLite

SQLCipher 3.4

SQLCipher 3.5

greenDAO Example APK size

70 KB

7.22 MB

2.80 MB

greenDAO Example size on device (Nexus 5x)

0,88 MB

17,89 MB

12.39 MB

We noticed one incompatibility with SQLCipher 3.5.x however. Android's SQLiteDatabase defines two additional collations:

In addition to SQLite's default BINARY collator, Android supplies two more, LOCALIZED, which changes with the system's current locale, and UNICODE, which is the Unicode Collation Algorithm and not tailored to the current locale.

Running SQL ORDER commands with "COLLATE LOCALIZED" does not work anymore starting with SQLCipher 3.5.0. That is the downside of the ICU (and ASOP code) removal.

So, what about greenDAO support for SQLCipher 3.5.x? greenDAO used "COLLATE LOCALIZED" in the QueryBuilder when specifying orders using string properties. To ensure compatibility with SQLCipher 3.5, we just released greendao-encryption V2.2.2 without the LOCALIZED collation.

greenDAO 2.2 with Database Encryption

Encryption is the central feature of today’s greenDAO 2.2 release. Actually, greenDAO seems to be the first Android ORM to officially support SQLCipher (non-beta). Since it’s first (source-only) release in August 2015, greenDAO’s encryption support has been successfully tested in a complex setup for months. So, if you want to store sensitive data in your database, give it a try!
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