Unlike many other OODBMSs, Perst does not require a special compiler or pre-processor. Yet, it is able to provide a high level of transparency. The Perst API is convenient, flexible, easy to use and very fast. For example, in OO7 benchmark tests, Perst created a database more than 100 times faster than Ozone (a pure Java OODBMS) and its iteration time was 10 times faster! An index benchmark shows Perst having more than a four-fold advantage over the commercial Java OODBMS ObjectStore PSE Pro. More information about Perst's performance is available here.
Perst is a very compact database, with a core consisting of only five thousand lines of code. It makes little demand on system resources. Moreover, Perst does not require any administration efforts. Despite such simplicity, Perst supports normal ACID transactions with very fast recovery after a runtime error.
There are two implementations of Perst - pure Java and pure C# (C Sharp). The C# implementation was produced from Java using a Java-to-C# converter (Note that significant manual changes are required to make this work). The C# implementation supports more primitive types (C# has unsigned integer types and enums). In all other respects, the two databases are completely equivalent and provide the same API. Perst.NET supports standard and compact .Net frameworks and can therefore be used to develop WinCE and PocketPC applications.
