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Firebird SQL vs MariaDB comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Firebird SQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
3rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (1st)
MariaDB
Ranking in Open Source Databases
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Firebird SQL is 18.0%, down from 20.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MariaDB is 6.5%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Doug Meuross - PeerSpot reviewer
A reliable tool that offers good performance and is easy to use
I have had no issues with the stability of the product since it has always been a 100 percent reliable product and much better than the other databases available in the market. The multi-platform part is not good, especially when locked into things like Windows. You can judge your platform with Linux or Unix or whatever since they are good.
KumarManish - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, cost-effective, and integrates seamlessly with other products
We had planned for an RDBMS version and not NoSQL. We use MariaDB Galera Cluster. It's a good product. It is cheap, scalable, performs well, and is efficient. We use GCP’s BigQuery for machine learning. We must follow the best practices of the tool. We missed some best practices like the storage engine and InnoDB. It was very difficult to identify why we were having performance issues. Then, we realized that some of our tables were still on MyISAM, the default storage engine. When we switched it back to the InnoDB, it was very smooth. InnoDB is the recommended one. We must follow the best practices given in the documentation during the initial setup. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The documentation is very well written."
"I can deploy it on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows — it's very easy."
"The most valuable feature of Firebird SQL is the creation of databases."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution."
"I find the ease of deployment to be the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"We are happy with the event capabilities of Firebird SQL database. We can raise events from it and display them in our application."
"The reliability and ease of management are very valuable."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution and can run on most operating systems, such as Linux, Unix, and Windows."
"The documentation is quite straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of MariaDB is the power it provides. It is a powerful solution."
"The solution has PL/SQL compatibility."
"MariaDB is a fast and flexible tool."
"The most valuable feature is that it uses multiple cores, which is better than some of the other databases."
"The performance is very good."
"From the user's perspective, the performance of the columnar queries is very good in terms of the database when comparing it to the Oracle, and MySQL."
"The solution is very easy to implement."
 

Cons

"Firebird SQL's performance has slowed since Firebird SQL 3 or 3.5 versions, where they developed over-the-wire encryption."
"It would be nice to have a graphical user interface to handle the product."
"Database sharing is a capability that Firebird SQL lacks."
"It is not easy to integrate the tool with Visual Studio."
"The solution could improve by providing partitioning and encryption. It is not at the higher level of database solution but it could be with some upgrades."
"We would like to improve the management of very large databases."
"I don't think the solution is very scalable, because the scalability of the performance when using more than one process is not very good."
"It would be interesting if they added functionality with redundancy, reputation, and variability."
"Replication could be better, and it's not so simple. It would be better if they had a replication server. It would make things a lot easier. You need to have that replication server, but not in the same server farm. Then there will be a bit of latency between both because you should have one in one city and another one in a different city. That kind of solution should be more baked into every single database today. Mirroring the database in a live environment where any record written on the production server replicates instantly across the fiber on the other server wasn't easy. Many people don't even bother with that, and they just run one server."
"The solution should do some fine-tuning on maybe the transaction per second so that users can get more than they can on the Microsoft SQL Server."
"Document caching is an area of concern in the product, where improvements are required to help MariaDB improve on the previous queries as they are retained, and you can roll back to them."
"The performance could be a bit better."
"I am editing."
"While MariaDB is a good relational database, it can be inflexible for complex use cases."
"MariaDB should provide HA and archive logging... I haven't had the opportunity to use the features provided by the solution since I don't know how to see them."
"It doesn't have the same level of maturity metrics as Postgres."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a public domain system as every customer can install it on their system without paying any license fee."
"I was using the free version of Firebird SQL."
"We are using the free solution, so there is no cost involved."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is freely available."
"There is no licensing cost for this solution, as it is open-source."
"It's open-source and free."
"The tool is open source."
"There is a yearly maintenance fee for the use of the solution."
"The product is not expensive."
"My company uses the free version of the solution."
"The price of this solution represents a very good compromise between the cost and what it offers."
"This is an open source solution with no licensing fees."
"We use the solution's free version."
"There is a monthly subscription to use MariaDB."
"MariaDB is available for free."
"The tool is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...
What do you like most about Firebird SQL?
Firebird SQL is an open-source solution.
What do you like most about MariaDB?
The integration with other products is seamless.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MariaDB?
I have found the price of commercial MariaDB to be pretty steep, although not as high as Oracle. Customers often prefer the Community Edition because it's free.
What needs improvement with MariaDB?
The only potential area for improvement could be the pricing model, which might benefit from being more flexible or a bit cheaper.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elekt Labs, Streamsoft, wobe-systems GmbH, DRB Systems, Moscow City Hospital #31
Google, Wikipedia, Tencent, Verizon, DBS Bank, Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, Huatai Securities
Find out what your peers are saying about Firebird SQL vs. MariaDB and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.