libdbi implements a database-independent abstraction layer in C, similar to the DBI/DBD layer in Perl. Writing one generic set of code, programmers can leverage the power of multiple databases and multiple simultaneous database connections by using this framework.

The libdbi package contains just the libdbi framework. To make use of libdbi you will also need one or more plugins from libdbi-drivers, which contains the plugins needed to interface to specific database servers.