What options are there for Free for commercial use NoSql Datastores for the .NET world?

Question

I've been looking around....

• MongoDB seems to require a commercial license. http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Licensing
• RavenDB has quite a costly scheme. http://ravendb.net/licensing

CouchDB, seems to be free for commercial use? But requires Apache, which is a bit of a pain.

Are there any other good options for .NET?

Answer 1

Of course, there's nothing preventing you from using a table in an ordinary SQL database as a simple repository for key-value pairs, which is essentially what a NoSQL database is.

This has the added benefit of still allowing you to use SQL where it is appropriate.

Answer 2

It may or may not apply to you: if you're going to use RavenDB for a startup company, you may request a free license.

Answer 3

Cassandra uses Facebook's "thrift" (now Apache Thrift) RPC mechanism for its client layer. This is capable of generating C# output, which you can compile into a .NET assembly and call from a MS CLR application.

Whether Cassandra itself does what you want, is very much dependent upon what you want is.