Fast, Enjoyable & Secure NoSQL Database

Hive is a lightweight and blazing fast key-value database written in pure Dart. Inspired by Bitcask.

Documentation & Samples 📖

If you need queries, multi-isolate support or links between objects check out Isar Database.

Features

• 🚀 Cross platform: mobile, desktop, browser
• ⚡ Great performance (see benchmark)
• ❤️ Simple, powerful, & intuitive API
• 🔒 Strong encryption built in
• 🎈 NO native dependencies
• 🔋 Batteries included

Getting Started

Check out the Quick Start documentation to get started.

Usage

You can use Hive just like a map. It is not necessary to await Futures.

var box = Hive.box('myBox');
                
                box.put('name', 'David');
                
                var name = box.get('name');
                
                print('Name: $name');
                

BoxCollections

BoxCollections are a set of boxes which can be similarly used as normal boxes, except of that they dramatically improve speed on web. They support opening and closing all boxes of a collection at once and more efficiently store data in indexed DB on web.

Aside, they also expose Transactions which can be used to speed up tremendous numbers of database transactions on web.

On dart:io platforms, there is no performance gain by BoxCollections or Transactions. Only BoxCollections might be useful for some box hierarchy and development experience.

// Create a box collection
                  final collection = await BoxCollection.open(
                    'MyFirstFluffyBox', // Name of your database
                    {'cats', 'dogs'}, // Names of your boxes
                    path: './', // Path where to store your boxes (Only used in Flutter / Dart IO)
                    key: HiveCipher(), // Key to encrypt your boxes (Only used in Flutter / Dart IO)
                  );
                
                  // Open your boxes. Optional: Give it a type.
                  final catsBox = collection.openBox<Map>('cats');
                
                  // Put something in
                  await catsBox.put('fluffy', {'name': 'Fluffy', 'age': 4});
                  await catsBox.put('loki', {'name': 'Loki', 'age': 2});
                
                  // Get values of type (immutable) Map?
                  final loki = await catsBox.get('loki');
                  print('Loki is ${loki?['age']} years old.');
                
                  // Returns a List of values
                  final cats = await catsBox.getAll(['loki', 'fluffy']);
                  print(cats);
                
                  // Returns a List<String> of all keys
                  final allCatKeys = await catsBox.getAllKeys();
                  print(allCatKeys);
                
                  // Returns a Map<String, Map> with all keys and entries
                  final catMap = await catsBox.getAllValues();
                  print(catMap);
                
                  // delete one or more entries
                  await catsBox.delete('loki');
                  await catsBox.deleteAll(['loki', 'fluffy']);
                
                  // ...or clear the whole box at once
                  await catsBox.clear();
                
                  // Speed up write actions with transactions
                  await collection.transaction(
                    () async {
                      await catsBox.put('fluffy', {'name': 'Fluffy', 'age': 4});
                      await catsBox.put('loki', {'name': 'Loki', 'age': 2});
                      // ...
                    },
                    boxNames: ['cats'], // By default all boxes become blocked.
                    readOnly: false,
                  );
                

Store objects

Hive not only supports primitives, lists and maps but also any Dart object you like. You need to generate a type adapter before you can store objects.

@HiveType(typeId: 0)
                class Person extends HiveObject {
                
                  @HiveField(0)
                  String name;
                
                  @HiveField(1)
                  int age;
                }
                

Extending HiveObject is optional but it provides handy methods like save() and delete().

var box = await Hive.openBox('myBox');
                
                var person = Person()
                  ..name = 'Dave'
                  ..age = 22;
                box.add(person);
                
                print(box.getAt(0)); // Dave - 22
                
                person.age = 30;
                person.save();
                
                print(box.getAt(0)) // Dave - 30
                

Hive ❤️ Flutter

Hive was written with Flutter in mind. It is a perfect fit if you need a lightweight datastore for your app. After adding the required dependencies and initializing Hive, you can use Hive in your project:

import 'package:hive/hive.dart';
                import 'package:hive_flutter/hive_flutter.dart';
                
                class SettingsPage extends StatelessWidget {
                  @override
                  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
                    return ValueListenableBuilder(
                      valueListenable: Hive.box('settings').listenable(),
                      builder: (context, box, widget) {
                        return Switch(
                          value: box.get('darkMode'),
                          onChanged: (val) {
                            box.put('darkMode', val);
                          }
                        );
                      },
                    );
                  }
                }
                

Boxes are cached and therefore fast enough to be used directly in the build() method of Flutter widgets.

Benchmark

1000 read iterations	1000 write iterations
SharedPreferences is on par with Hive when it comes to read performance. SQLite performs much worse.	Hive greatly outperforms SQLite and SharedPreferences when it comes to writing or deleting.

The benchmark was performed on a Oneplus 6T with Android Q. You can run the benchmark yourself.

*Take this benchmark with a grain of salt. It is very hard to compare databases objectively since they were made for different purposes.

Licence

Copyright 2019 Simon Leier
                
                Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
                you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
                You may obtain a copy of the License at
                
                   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
                
                Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
                distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
                WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
                See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
                limitations under the License.
                

2.2.3

Enhancements

• Exposed resetAdapters method for testing - #1014
• Removed unnecessary print statement - #1015

2.2.2

Fixes

• Register DateTime adapter on web - #983

2.2.1

Fixes

• Retracted hive@2.2.0 from pub.dev
• Fixed hive web backend null value exception - #968

2.2.0

Enhancements

• Added multiple storage backends for web - #956

2.1.0

Fixes

• Do not return uninitialized box - #916

Enhancements

• Adapter type inheritance - #927
• UTF8 keys - #928

2.0.6

Fixes

• Fixed issue caused database to crash when executing crash recovery - #914

2.0.5

Enhancements

• Get IndexedDB selectively based on window property - #802
• Added path parameter to boxExists and deleteBoxFromDisk methods - #776
• Added flush method to boxes - #852

Fixes

• Don't loose track of box objects if init crashes - #846

2.0.4

Enhancements

• Adds default value support to hive_generator generated class adapters

2.0.3

Fixes

• Fix regression where lists are no longer growable - #631

2.0.2

Fixes

• HiveObjectMixin not assigning box to object - #618

2.0.1

Fixes

• BoxEvent value is null when watching a LazyBox - #592
• Allow calling .init() multiple times, instead of throwing error Hive will print warning to console
• Hive will warn developers when registering adapters for dynamic type

2.0.0

Fixes

• Stable null-safety version

1.6.0-nullsafety.2

Fixes

• Added defaultValue property to @HiveField() annotation - #557

1.6.0-nullsafety.1

Fixes

• Changed meta dependency version to ^1.3.0-nullsafety to support null-safety

1.6.0-nullsafety.0

Breaking changes

• Migrate to null-safety - #521
• Update minimum Dart sdk constraint to 2.12.0-0.
• In order to generate null-safe code use hive_generator >= 0.9.0-nullsafety.0

1.5.0-pre

Enhancements

• Timezone support for DateTime - #419

1.4.4+1

Fixes

• Browser support for BackendManager.boxExists(boxName, path) - #451

1.4.4

Fixes

• Edge browser support - #357

1.4.3

Enhancements

• Added Hive.ignoreTypeId(typeId) - #397

Fixes

• open(Lazy)Box can potentially open a box twice - #345
• Remove extra byte reservation in writeBoolLis - #398

1.4.2

Fixes

• Fixed dependency issues and minor improvements

1.4.1+1

Other

• Added docs to all public members

1.4.1

Enhancements

• Minor performance improvements

Fixes

• When a database operation failed, subsequent operations would not be performed

Other

• Fixed GitHub homepage path

1.4.0+1

Enhancements

• Minor performance improvements

Fixes

• Allow more versions of crypto

1.4.0

Enhancements

• ~1000% encryption / decryption performance improvement
• Added option to implement custom encryption algorithm
• Added box.valuesBetween(startKey, endKey)
• Allow tree shaking to drop encryption engine if no encryption is used

Fixes

• Hive.deleteBoxFromDisk() did not work for boxes with upper-case names

More

• Deprecated encryptionKey parameter. Use Hive.openBox('name', encryptionCipher: HiveAesCipher(yourKey)).
• Dropped pointycastle dependency
• Dropped path dependency

1.3.0

Use latest version of hive_generator

Breaking changes

• TypeAdapters and @HiveType() now require a typeId
• Hive.registerAdapter() does not need a typeId anymore.
• Removed BinaryReader.readAsciiString()
• Removed BinaryWriter.writeAsciiString()

Enhancements

• New documentation with tutorials and live code

Fixes

• box.clear() resets auto increment counter

More

• Not calling Hive.init() results in better exception

1.2.0

Breaking changes

• Removed the Hive.path getter
• Removed Hive.openBoxFromBytes() (use the bytes parameter of Hive.openBox() instead)
• LazyBox and Box now have a common parent class: BoxBase
• Lazy boxes need to be opened using Hive.openLazyBox()
• Open lazy boxes can be acquired using Hive.lazyBox()
• Box name bug resolved (more information below)

Enhancements

• Support for relationships, HiveLists (see docs for details)
• Support for inheritance
• Lazy boxes can now have a type argument LazyBox<YourModel>
• Added method to delete boxes without opening them Hive.deleteBoxFromDisk()
• Added path parameter to open boxes in a custom path
• Improved documentation

Fixes

• HiveObjects have not been initialized correctly in lazy boxes
• Fixed bug where uppercase box name resulted in an uppercase filename
• Fixed compaction bug which caused corrupted boxes
• Fixed bug which did not allow the key 0xFFFFFFFF
• Fixed bug where not all BoxEvents have been broadcasted

More

• Changed type of encryptionKey from Uint8List to List<int>

Important:

Due to a bug in previous Hive versions, boxes whose name contains uppercase characters were stored in a file that also contains upper case characters (e.g. 'myBox' -> 'myBox.hive').

To avoid different behavior on case sensitive file systems, Hive should store files with lower case names. This bug has been resolved in version 1.2.0.

If your box name contains upper case characters, the new version will not find a box stored by an older version. Please rename the hive file manually in that case.
This also applies to the web version.

1.1.1

Breaking changes

• object.delete() now throws exception if object is not stored in a box

Fixes

• Fixed bug where object.save() would fail on subsequent calls

1.1.0+2

Fixes

• Fixed bug that it was not possible to open typed boxes (Box<E>)

1.1.0+1

Fixes

• Fixed bug that corrupted boxes were not detected

1.1.0

Breaking changes

• Changed return type of addAll() from List<int> to Iterable<int>.
• Removed the option to register TypeAdapters for a specific box. E.g. box.registerTypeAdapter().
• getAt(), putAt(), deleteAt() and keyAt() no longer allow indices out of range.

Enhancements

• Added HiveObject
• Boxes have now an optional type parameter Box<E>
• Support opening boxes from assets

Fixes

• Fixed bug which was caused by not awaiting write operations
• Fixed bug where custom compaction strategy was not applied
• Hive now locks box files while they are open to prevent concurrent access from multiple processes

More

• Improved performance of putAll(), deleteAll(), add(), addAll()
• Changed values parameter of addAll() from List to Iterable
• Improved documentation
• Preparation for queries

1.0.0

• First stable release

0.5.1+1

• Change keys parameter of deleteAll from List to Iterable
• Fixed bug in BinaryWriter

0.5.1

• Fixed Hive.init() bug in browser
• Fixed a bug with large lists or strings
• Improved box opening time in the browser
• Improved general write performance
• Improved docs
• Added integration tests

0.5.0

• Added keyComparator parameter for custom key order
• Added isEmpty and isNotEmpty getters to box
• Added support for reading and writing subclasses
• Removed length limitation for Lists, Maps, and Strings
• Greatly improved performance of storing Uint8Lists in browser
• Removed CRC check in the browser (not needed)
• Improved documentation
• TypeIds are now allowed in the range of 0-223
• Fixed compaction
• Fixed writing longer Strings
• Breaking: Binary format changed

0.4.1+1

• Document all public APIs
• Fixed flutter_web error

0.4.1

• Allow different versions of the path package

0.4.0

• Added BigInt support
• Added compactionStrategy parameter
• Added automatic crash recovery
• Added add() and addAll() for auto-increment keys
• Added getAt(), putAt() and deleteAt() for working with indices
• Support for int (32 bit unsigned) keys
• Non-lazy boxes now notify their listeners immediately about changes
• Bugfixes
• More tests
• Breaking: Open boxes with openBox()
• Breaking: Writing null is no longer equivalent to deleting a key
• Breaking: Temporarily removed support for transactions. New API design needed. Will be coming back in a future version.
• Breaking: Binary format changed
• Breaking: API changes

0.3.0+1

• Bugfix: Hive['yourBox'] didn't work with uppercase box names

0.3.0

• Big step towards stable API
• Support for transactions
• Annotations for hive_generator
• Bugfixes
• Improved web support
• Breaking: inMemory -> lazy
• Breaking: Binary format changed

0.2.0

• Support for dart2js
• Improved performance
• Added inMemory option
• Breaking: Minor API changes
• Breaking: Changed Endianness to little
• Breaking: Removed Migrator

0.1.1

• Downgrade to meta: ^1.1.6 to support flutter

0.1.0

• First release