There are lots of database engines in the world.    
There are a growing number of open-source embedded database engines.    
How can you know which engine is right for your application?    
    
This page provides links to comparisons between SQLite and    
other database engines.  The information that this page links to    
is intended to provide designers with information to help them    
choose the best database for their particular situation.  If you    
find additional comparision information, please add a link to this    
page.    
    
*: SqliteVersusDerby - A comparison of SQLite and the CloudScape/Derby    
   database recently open-sourced by IBM.    
    
*: SqliteVersusDbstar - A comparison of SQLite and the db.* database engine    
    recently open-sourced by ITTIA.    

*: SqliteVersusRDMMobile - RDM-Mobile 3.0 from Birdstep Technology (http://www.birdstep.com) is basically the same product as db.*. It was extended with additional access layers (Java-JNI, XML).

*: SqliteVersusRDMEmbedded

_:: RDM-Embedded (also from Birdstep Technology) adds a SQL-Layer to RDM-Mobile. It features an ODBC-like C-API. The SQL-Dialect is very limited compared to SQLite (no triggers, no views, no outer joins ...). No DDL-Statements can be executed via the SQL-Layer, the table structure must be predefined using a preprocessor utility. As the records are fixed-size the database can grow very large when using strings with variable length.
    
*: What about EmbeddedMySQL?: ({link: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/libmysqld_overview.html description})  I    
don't know enough to do a comparison myself, but it seems to have a lot of    
overlap.    
    
_::A big turn off for EmbeddedMySQL is their license - here's an extract:  
  
_:::"The MySQL source code is covered by the GNU GPL license (see section G GNU    
General Public License). One result of this is that any program which includes,    
by linking with libmysqld, the MySQL source code must be released as free    
software (under a license compatible with the GPL)." (added by    
{link:http://www.smartpethealth.com DV})    
    
_::Another turn off is its size: when i link SQLite into my app the difference is    
barely noticed not so with EmbeddedMySQL.     
    
*: What about SimpleSQL?: ({link: http://www.simplesql.org/ for description})

_:: SimpleSQL is only sparsely documented.  The code is uncommented except
for a boiler-plate header comment on each file.  There are some test cases
but the testing seems to be much less rigorous than SQLite.  SimpleSQL uses
the LGPL license.  
  

*: SQLite versus {link: http://www.sleepycat.com/ Berkeley DB}:

_:: Berkeley DB (BDB) is just the data storage layer - it does not support
SQL or schemas.  In spite of this, BDB is twice the size of
SQLite.  A comparison between BDB and SQLite is similar to a comparison
between assembly language and a dynamic language like Python or Tcl.
BDB is probably much faster if you code it carefully.  But it is much more
difficult to use and considerably less flexible.

_:: On the other hand BDB has very fine grained locking (although it's not very well documented), while AFAIK SQLite currently has only table level locks.