• Australia: 1300 553 313
  • New Zealand: 0800 450 168

Actian Zen Embedded Database (PSQL)

Buy Now
/ Actian (Pervasive) Products / Actian Zen Embedded Database (PSQL)

Actian Zen Embedded Database (PSQL)

Embedded, Zero-Administration DBMS
Perfect for Packaged Business Applications

Zen Embedded Database (PSQL) is the most reliable, small-footprint, low-maintenance, high-performance database management system (DBMS) in the world. Zen Embedded Database (PSQL) combines NoSQL and relational access for the perfect blend of performance and standard access. Zero DBA design and fantastic backward compatibility mean that ISVs support costs are dramatically reduced.

NoSQL and SQL
Hybrid NoSQL/relational database for superfast transactions and standard SQL access.

Zero Administration
Set it and forget it – no DBA required – completely hidden from the end user.

Small Footprint
Requires 96 MB or less. Developer configurable installation to cherry-pick components, silent install and more.

Comprehensive Integration and Data Management

Powerful and easy-to-use, our products deliver increased ROI … greater business flexibility and competitiveness … enhanced revenue opportunities … improved accountability for investments … and a lower total cost of ownership, helping to speed “time to value.”

Built for Growing Organisations

Pervasive understands the diverse data requirements of growing organisations. That is why they offer comprehensive data infrastructure software built specifically for you and your customers, regardless of size or information needs.

Pervasive products are designed and built from the ground up to deliver flexible, value-based solutions that respect the specific budgetary and resource concerns of all organisations.

At the same time, Pervasive products offer enterprise-level functionality to help organisations quickly and fully integrate disparate systems and connect them to applications, data, people, and business partners.

Make Your Job Easier

Whether you are an IT developer looking for an integration project solution or an application developer seeking an embeddable solution, Pervasive offers a full range of versatile, software products:

Actian Zen Embedded Database (PSQL) – Competitive Advantages

PSQL provides a number of advantages over other products available on the market. Here are just a few:

  • Lowest total cost of ownership. An independent study conducted by Aberdeen Group concluded that no major database product can match PSQL’s low total cost of ownership. How do we do it? See the next bullet.
  • No Database Administrator (DBA) required. You can look in the newspaper any day of the week and see classified ads for Oracle, Sybase, or SQL Server database administrators, with sky-high salaries. PSQL offers the unique Zero Database Administrator, or Z-DBA, architecture. Its easy-to-use tools, bulletproof installation, and set-it-and-forget-it simplicity make it the perfect workhorse for desktop, workgroup, and departmental applications.
  • Scalable from the desktop to the Web. PSQL is available in two editions: the Ultra-light Workgroup database engine supports single-user configurations up to small workgroup configurations. The Server engine comes with a six-user license and scales to hundreds of concurrent users, including intranet and extranet applications. Upgrading to another configuration requires no changes to the supported application, just plug and play with the new database engine.
  • Cross-platform support. Unlike some competitors, PSQL does not lock you in to a single platform. PSQL databases are binary-compatible and supported across Microsoft Windows and several varieties of Linux. No matter where your data is or where it is going to be, PSQL is there for you.
  • Big database features at a small price. PSQL offers full security, encryption, management and monitoring tools, and a host of other features you would expect to see in more expensive DBMS products.
  • Legendary stability and reliability. There’s no doubt why the Windows desktop accounting market uses PSQL as the underlying database of choice. When you’ve got to manage important data, you go for the database engine that won’t let you down.
  • Multiple access methods. Your application vendor can use the Btrieve API for blazing performance on bulk data operations, while offering the richness of ODBC, OLE-DB, pure Java, and JDBC interfaces for data reporting, security, analysis, and standard compatibility. No other database management system offers all these access methods.

For more information, contact MicroWay by phone on 1300 553 313 or email

Actian Zen Embedded Database (PSQL) Editions

Zen Workgroup (PSQL)

Zen Workgroup is designed to support single-user or small workgroup installations.

Zen Workgroup offers the same level of reliability and features as PSQL Server. The only differences lie in networking and performance in mid- and large-size environments.

Zen Workgroup offers a flexible approach to accessing data on remote servers in a variety of small network configurations. If you have data files on a remote file system with no database engine present, you can configure Zen Workgroup so that a particular engine is always used to access the remote data, or you can set it up so that the first engine to access the files acts as a server for those files until there are no more requests for data. After this point, the next engine to access the files then owns them while requests are coming in.

A Zen Workgroup license key cannot be installed on more than one machine. Your user count license refers to the number of client connections allowed to that engine, not to the number of machines to which you are allowed to install the Zen Enterprise engine. In a Workgroup environment, every machine that will access Zen Enterprise data should have a Workgroup engine installed.

Actian Zen Core Database for Android and iOS

Actian Zen Core database for Android and iOS focuses squarely on the needs of Edge and IoT application developers, providing persistent local and distributed data across intelligent applications embedded in smart devices. Develop using the Android SDK, iOS SDK, and other 3rd party tools and deploy on any standard or embedded platform running Android or iOS. Actian Zen Core database supports zero ETL data sharing to any Actian Zen family server or client database.

Zen Core database is a NoSQL, zero DBA, embeddable, nano-footprint (2MB minimum) edge database for SIs, ISVs, and OEMs that need to embed a data manage¬ment platform in their Mobile apps, from smart phones to PoS terminals to industrial IoT. With direct data access via APIs, self-tuning, reporting, data portability, exceptional reliability, and compatibility, IoT and Edge developers can deliver apps at scale across a wide range of platforms and development languages and environments.

Zen Enterprise (PSQL) Server and Cloud Server

Zen Enterprise (PSQL) Server and Cloud Server are designed to support up to many hundreds of concurrent network users when installed on the required hardware. They are capable of supporting Web, corporate, departmental, and other client-server or web-based applications where reliability and performance are critical.

Zen Enterprise (PSQL) Server and Cloud Server differ in that Cloud Server supports capacity-based licenses for service bureau, software as a service, or other multiplexed environments, while Zen Enterprise (PSQL) Server supports licenses for enduser client-server applications. No additional license is required for use with hypervisor features such as live migration, failover, fault tolerance (FT), high availability (HA), and disaster recovery.

Zen Edge Server

Actian Zen Edge Server database focuses squarely on the needs of Edge and IoT application developers, providing persistent local and distributed data across intelligent applications and smart devices at the edge. Develop and deploy on Intel or ARM standard or embedded platforms including Raspbian Windows IoT Core for single dedicated apps, or Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, etc.) for multiple applications. Zen Edge Server database extends the features of classic PSQL embedded editions to the latest intelligent edge use cases with full backward compatibility.

Zen Edge Server is a SQL/NoSQL, zero DBA, embeddable, nano-footprint edge database for SIs, ISVs, and OEMs that need to embed a data management platform in their apps, from smart phones to PoS terminals to industrial IoT. With both relational and direct data access, self-tuning, reporting, data portability, exceptional reliability, easy upgrades, and backward compatibility, IoT and Edge solution developers can deliver applications at scale across a wide range of platforms.

For more information, contact MicroWay by phone on 1300 553 313 or email