AFAICS, it doesn't "remove" that benefit. It just adds a second way to access your databases. I believe FirebirdSQL has done this for a while - you can either

AFAICS, it doesn't "remove" that benefit. It just adds a second way to access your databases. I believe FirebirdSQL has done this for a while - you can either link the whole database library to your code, or with the same API, link a client library that talks to a remote database over the network. It's a great idea because you can link to the embedded version for development and unit testing, but upgrade to a full networked DB server for the live deployment.