Top 7 Databases for Mobile App Development in 2025
Last Updated : 23 Apr, 2025
In the ever-evolving mobile app development landscape, selecting the correct database is crucial for building efficient and robust applications. Based on the requirements of the project, the database can be local or remote. With the generation of smartphones and the increasing demand for feature-rich mobile experiences, developers have many choices for selecting the right database.
In this article, we will delve into Top 7 database for mobile app development in 2025 by exploring its features and advantages.
What is a Database?
Before discussing different mobile databases, let's first look at what is a database? In the computing world, a database is a structured collection of data that is organized and stored in such a way that it enables efficient data retrieval, manipulation, and management. For modern applications, databases are the backbone that provides reliable and scalable data access and storage.
A database can be categorized into two main types-
1. Local database
As its name suggests, the local database resides locally on the device where an application is installed or running. With a local database, users can store data without the need for any network connectivity. The local database is used in mobile applications to store user preferences, cached data, or user-specific data. Since data is stored locally, it stores and retrieves data quickly.
2. Remote database
A remote database is a database that stores data on remote servers and requires network connectivity, such as the Internet. Unlike local databases, data stored in a remote database can be accessed from multiple devices, which gives users the ability to access data from anywhere. The remote database follows the client-server architecture, where applications run on client devices and communicate with the data server to perform data operations.
Top 7 Databases for Mobile App Development
In mobile app development landscape, choosing the right database is crucial for building efficient and scalable apps. Explore the top 7 mobile app development databases and their strengths to find the perfect fit for your project.
1. Firebase
Owned by Google, Firebase is the first choice for mobile platforms due to its features such as authentication, a real-time database, cloud storage, cloud messaging, and hosting services. It offers easy integration with mobile platforms such as Android and iOS. Along with online, Firebase also supports offline data storage that can be synced once network connectivity is available.
Key Features
- Realtime database: With a realtime database, Firebase offers a NoSQL cloud database that allows the storage and retrieval of data in real time among the users. This feature is particularly useful when a real-time update of data is required, such as in chat applications.
- Cloud Firestore: Firebase’s Cloud Firestore feature is a next-generation cloud-native NoSQL database that offers more advanced features such as retrieving data using queries, offline support, real-time synchronization, and scalability.
- Authentication: Authentication is one of the great features supported by Firebase. It allows developers to integrate social media logins such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, and a few more. This allows users to log into the application easily using their social media accounts.
- Cloud messaging: Firebase Cloud messaging, commonly known as FCM, allows developers to send push notifications and specific messages to targeted devices and audiences. It supports platforms such as Android, iOS, and the Web.
- Hosting: For static and dynamic content Firebase offers secure and fast web hosting.
2. SQLite
SQLite is a lightweight, embedded database that is widely used in mobile application development. Similar to SQL, SQLite also stores data in the form of a tabular, which means rows and columns. SQLite is well known for its simplicity, reliability, and compatibility with mobile platforms such as Android and iOS. Developers mostly choose SQLite due to its small footprint and ease of integration into mobile platforms like Android and iOS.
Key Features
- Zero Configuration: SQLite integration on mobile platforms is very easy as it requires minimal setup and administration. It doesn’t require a separate server or configuration file. Developers can start using SQLite by just adding the needed library to the project.
- Cross-Platform Support: The SQLite database is cross-platform and works seamlessly on various platforms and OSs, such as Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS. With this support, developers can use the same database on multiple platforms.
- ACID compliance: SQLite follows the ACID principles, which are atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability. Support for these properties ensures that database transactions are reliable, consistent, and durable.
- SQL compatibility: The SQLite database supports a large subset of the SQL92 standard, which provides comprehensive SQL syntax for creating, querying, and manipulating databases. It also supports common SQL operations such as transactions, sub-queries, joins, triggers, and views.
- Low memory requirement: SQLite is designed for efficiency and requires a small memory footprint, which makes it suitable for memory-constrained environments such as mobile platforms.
- High Performance: Despite its lightweight nature, SQLite provides high-performance database operations.
3. Realm
Realm is a mobile database that is a replacement for SQLite and core data. It provides real-time data synchronization, mapping of objects, and a simple API that makes it suitable for mobile platforms. It is designed in such a way that it works well with mobile devices to provide efficient performance.
Key Features
- Object-Oriented: Realm is an object-oriented database, which means Realm stores data in object form. Developers can fetch and save native objects such as classes in Android and structs in Swift directly without the need for any kind of data parsing method.
- Real-time data sync: The Realm database offers real-time data synchronization, which allows multiple devices and provides access to and updates to the same database in real-time. This feature makes it an ideal choice for multi-user applications.
- Fast and Efficient: Realm is well known for its high-performance capabilities. It offers fast read and write operations compared to traditional databases like SQLite. To achieve this performance, it uses memory-mapped files and other optimization techniques.
- Encryption and Security: Realm comes with built-in support for data encryption and security, which ensures that sensitive data stored in the database remains protected. It allows developers to encrypt entire databases or particular objects using standard encryption algorithms.
- Easy Integration: Realm allows developers a very easy way to integrate into mobile platforms like ReactNative, Xamarin, and Flutter. It provides native libraries and APIs for seamless integration in mobile apps.
4. Couchbase Mobile
Couchbase Mobile is a complete NoSQL database solution that includes Couchbase Lite, a lightweight embedded NoSQL database, and a Couchbase server. Couchbase database provides features such as data synchronization, offline data support, and full-text search, which makes it more suitable for mobile applications that require offline capabilities.
Key Features
- Sync gateway: Couchbase Sync Gateway offers bidirectional data synchronization between the Couchbase cloud server and the ClouchLite database stored on mobile devices.
- JSON document store: As a primary data format, Couchbase Mobile uses JSON, which makes it easy to work with structured and semi-structured data. With Couchbase, developers can store complex data structures directly as JSON documents, which eliminates the need for relational data mapping.
- Conflict Resolution: Couchbase Mobile has a built-in conflict resolution mechanism to resolve conflicts that may arise during data synchronization. It has flexible conflict resolution policies such as last-write-win and custom conflict resolution handlers.
- Security and Authentication: Couchbase Mobile supports robust security features such as encryption, user authentication, and role-based access control. It ensures protection for sensitive data.
- Developer Tools and Integration: It provides a comprehensive set of developer tools that includes SDKs, APIs, and client libraries that streamline the development and integration processes.
5. Amazon DynamoDB
Provided by Amazon Web Services, Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service. It offers high availability, scalability, and performance, which makes it suitable for mobile platforms that require these capabilities. It also supports essential features such as data encryption, backup, and restore.
Key Features
- Fully managed service: DynamoDB is a fully managed service, which means administrative tasks such as hardware provisioning, setup, scaling, backup, and maintenance are handled by AWS.
- High Performance: For reading and writing operations, it delivers single-digit millisecond latency. It makes it suitable for applications that require fast and responsive data access.
- Global Tables: For high data availability and disaster recovery, developers can use Global Tables, which allow them to replicate data across multiple AWS regions.
- Backup and Restore: It provides automated and on-demand backup and restore capabilities, which allows developers to create full backups of their tables for their data protection.
- Consistent and Predictable Performance: Regardless of the volume of traffic or data size, Dynamo DB offers consistent and predictable performance.
6. MongoDB Realm
MongoDB Realm is a mobile database platform that offers a combination of Realm’s local storage and MongoDB’s scalable backend. It provides features such as user authentication, synchronization, and serverless functions, which make it suitable for developing mobile applications with real-time data sync and offline data support.
Key Features
- GraphQL Support: It supports GraphQL, a query language and runtime for querying and manipulating data. Developers can use GraphQL to execute complex queries against data.
- Authentication and Authorization: MongoDB Realm supports built-in authentication and authorization services that allow developers to authenticate securely.
- Serverless Functions: This feature enables developers to run backend and business logic in response to events triggered by client applications.
7. PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL is a powerful RDBMS (relational database management system) known for its robustness, extensibility, and adherence to SQL standards. Though it is designed primarily for server-side deployment, there are efforts to extend it to support mobile platforms, called PostgreSQL Mobile.
Key Features
- Relational Database: The core feature of PostgreSQL is that it supports relational data modeling, SQL querying, transactions, and indexes. It allows developers to store and manipulate data using familiar SQL syntax.
- Embedded Database Engine: PostgreSQL Mobile is designed to be directly embedded into mobile applications, which allows developers to leverage the power of PostgreSQL.
- Offline data access: PostgreSQL offers offline data access by storing data locally on mobile devices. This allows users to use data even when their device does not have network connectivity.
Choosing the Right Database for Mobile App Development
Choosing the right database for your mobile app hinges on a few key factors:
- Data Model: Structured data calls for an RDBMS like SQLite, while unstructured data might prefer NoSQL options like Firebase.
- Scalability: Consider future growth and choose a database that can handle increasing data volume.
- Performance: Prioritize high-performance databases like Realm or SQLite for real-time needs.
- Offline Support: If offline functionality is crucial, opt for databases like Couchbase Mobile or Firebase with offline capabilities.
- Security: Ensure robust security features like encryption and authentication are available.
- Development Expertise: Match the database to your team's skillset for smoother development.
Must Read
Conclusion
These databases provide a range of features and capabilities that fulfill specific requirements of mobile applications, which include offline support, real-time data synchronization, scalability, and performance. Developers can evaluate the requirements of their projects and choose the database that matches their requirements, as all databases have distinct features and advantages. For remote databases, developers need to consider price criteria as those databases are free up some context.
Similar Reads
Best Practices for Mobile App Development in 2025
In today’s fast-moving digital world, mobile applications have become an integral part of business as they cover a large range of end users. Targeting mobile applications for businesses can help them expand their business and reach a large range of end users. However, building successful mobile appl
8 min read
Top 10 Mobile App Development Frameworks in 2025
Needless to say, mobile apps have already become a vital part of our daily lives. Whether you want to go for a ride or book a movie ticket or virtually connect with your favorite ones, etc. - you just take out your smartphone and search for the respective apps. Indeed, due to numerous technological-
10 min read
Top 7 Databases for Data Scientists in 2025
In the field of data science, data scientists have major roles and responsibilities in managing the data, and that is where databases become one of the important tools for the data scientists, which helps them by collecting all the structured and unstructured data of businesses, companies, governmen
7 min read
Top 10 Flutter Tools for App Development in 2025
In the rapidly changing arena of mobile application development, Flutter has emerged as a robust framework for cross-platform application development: Android, iOS, Web, and Desktop. With its rich set of features, tools, and ever-growing community, Flutter has empowered developers to create high-per
10 min read
Top 5 Frameworks for Cross-Platform Mobile App Development
Mobile Application development emerged as a completely new field, with the expansion of the domain. Many new different techniques are introduced for Mobile Application Development. Generally, Mobile Applications are either developed for the Android Operating System or iPhone Operating System where t
5 min read
Top 7 Databases to Learn in 2025
A database is just like a room in an office where all the files and important information can be stored related to a project. Every company needs a database to store and organize the information. The information that we store can be very sensitive, so we always have to be careful while accessing or
10 min read
How to Design a Database for Mobile App Backend
Designing a relational database for a mobile app backend is a critical step in ensuring the scalability, performance, and efficiency of our application. A well-designed database can improve data management, simplify queries, and enhance overall user experience. In this article, we will explore the k
5 min read
Firebase vs AWS - Best Backend Solution for App Development in 2025
Choosing the best backend solution is the first step in building a successful web or mobile app. Among the two prime competitors, Firebase (Google) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), that appear during the cloud computing period, there lies a great deal of power. Both platforms offer powerful tools to h
10 min read
Top 7 Progressive Web App Development Frameworks [2025]
Ever since smartphones came into existence and the popularity of websites increased, merging the two to create a phenomenal experience for customers has been challenging for the developer community. While many tools and frameworks were put to good use to develop the perfect blend of wide reachabilit
8 min read
10 Common Mobile App Development Mistakes to Avoid in 2025
In the ever-evolving landscape of mobile application development, staying up-to-date and walking with trends is very important for application success. As we enter the year 2025 it is crucial to be aware of common pitfalls that can create obstacles in the process of application development and compr
8 min read