Several licenses are available for the use of SQL Server. These licenses are called “editions”, Compact Edition was an example of this, in 2013 the development of Compact Edition was stopped.

The common editions of Microsoft SQL Server are Express, Developer, Standard, Enterprise and Business Intelligence. In the past, it sometimes happened that application suppliers only needed a small database with limited capabilities for their application, and then integrated (also called “embedding”) this database into the application. In that case, the application supplier supplied the Compact Edition. However, from 2013, Compact Edition will no longer be developed.