SQL Server Express vs express localdb

Question

I am having quite a few problems understanding differences between regular SQL Server Express and express Localdb.

Before you go ahead and tag a previous post about this question, I've went through question history quite a few times.

The resources that I found somewhat helpful were: Is there a difference between SQL Server Express (2012) and LocalDB? and an official Microsoft page article about it.

I believe I do understand that Express Localdb is an edition of SQL Server Express, that is targeted to developers in order to reduce time consumption of all the "configuration".

What exact configuration? What is the difference If I use Username\SQLEXPRESS versus (Localdb)\MSSQLLocalDB, it creates a database anyway. What are the differences in terms of publishing your application into production?

Graeco

Did you read the blog posts here; blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlexpress ? – Vaucluse

Thanks for your comment. Context of those arcticles is the same: "LocalDb is a feature of SQL Express". This is getting awkward for me, but it still doesn't ring a bell in my head. – Graeco

Answer 1

LocalDB is a special, low impact version of the SQL Server engine, that is not installed as a Windows Service, but launched (made to run) on demand by the ADO.NET client opening a connection to it. It is intended for single user scenarios, and not for any production use - for production you should use SQL Server Express (or higher)

I have a blog post that compares the various engines here: http://erikej.blogspot.dk/2011/01/comparison-of-sql-server-compact-4-and.html

Vaucluse

The blog post was something really interesting to analyze. It did answer my question, but only partially: assuming that I was using LocalDB for development, how do you move on to production environment? It would be great if you could edit the answer, thank you once again! – Graeco

"how do you move on to production environment" - it depends- I use SSDT and simply deploy the database project to a production database – Vaucluse

Is there any reason to install both LocalDB & Express? Do they play together at all, or would having both on the same box cause issues? – Foam

@Foam No reason to install both, just use SQL Express – Vaucluse

@Vaucluse I ran into your blog (erikej.blogspot.com/2011/01/…) that compares the different SQL Server options. I however could not understand this parameter "Privately installed, embedded, with the application" Can you please elaborate on this? Looks like it is a bit ambiguous. I could not infer if the three parameters are relevant or distinct. – Sfax

@Sfax it means that the database engine can be included with the app as a set of binary files – Vaucluse

Do we also use ports, user and password to connect to LocalDB? – Nearby