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Firebird SQL vs MySQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (4th)
MySQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
152
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Firebird SQL is 9.5%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL is 11.9%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
MySQL11.9%
Firebird SQL9.5%
Other78.6%
Open Source Databases
 

Featured Reviews

SS
Research and Development Project Manager at Sixense Monitoring
Efficient data storage with reliable and easy management
We are working on monitoring software that involves making a lot of measurements with sensors. We store all the data in Firebird, which is why we use It primarily for data storage It's difficult to describe how it has improved our organization because we have been using Firebird for a very long…
Varuns Ug - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Developer at NIT
Reliable transactions have supported secure payments, refunds, and bookings at high volumes
Regarding MySQL improvements, a pain point is horizontal scalability. MySQL scales very well vertically and can support read replicas, but as a system grows significantly, sharding and distributed data management can become complex compared to databases that are designed to scale horizontally from the beginning. This is one of the areas where I think MySQL should work more. Another area is handling very large analytic workloads. MySQL is excellent for transactional systems, but for large-scale analytics or reporting, specialized analytic databases may sometimes be a better fit. Apart from that, one area is performance troubleshooting. As the database grows, diagnosing things such as slow queries, lock contention, and deadlocks becomes complex.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product was easy to use."
"I like Firebird because it's very lightweight; it's very light and powerful, and I can do everything that I can with MS SQL Server and Oracle with Firebird, with very easy deployment on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows and great integration capabilities."
"The documentation is very well written."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is reliable, offers good performance, and is easy to use."
"Robustness is the absolutely main feature."
"I like that we don't have to pay external fees to migrate this data. So, we are looking to relocate from Postgres or EDB."
"The solution has worked perfectly; I've never run into issues or had to reach out to technical support for troubleshooting."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution and can run on most operating systems, such as Linux, Unix, and Windows."
"MySQL has cross-platform support for multiple operating systems. The backups on a Linux machine can be restored on a Windows machine, and vice versa."
"Storage and searching quickly on data is no longer an issue facing us using Excel."
"This product is valuable because it is used in production environments."
"SKIP LOCKED is a valuable feature."
"The open source product is good; if you want advanced features go for the enterprise edition."
"The tool is open-source and there is no cost involved in its use."
"When comparing MySQL to other solutions it is easier to use and boots up faster. Additionally, when you want to query a lot of data, MySQL is better in performance."
"Mysql is free : it's an open source project, so you can use it with no cost."
 

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."
"There aren't a lot of people using this solution — it's not very popular in the marketplace."
"This solution isn't very user-friendly, or intuitive, which could be improved when it is developed."
"In the next release, it should support JSON, XML, and replication with third-party tools."
"The security of the users could improve in Firebird SQL."
"It would be interesting if they added functionality with redundancy, reputation, and variability."
"On large databases, we have some difficulties."
"The user interface could be more user friendly. Mainly because most of the times we see black and white digital lines. Something like Python."
"It should provide better customer experiences."
"The replication needs improvement. It's becoming a native cloud product like Oracle DB or Cockroach DB."
"There are certain things that it doesn't do as well as SQL Server. There are certain things that you can do to swamp the server, such as it is just not very responsive to more complicated joins and things like that."
"I would just say that it could be a little bit simpler to use."
"The GUI interface probably can be improved. Let us say I want to see the relationships in the database. In the query analyzer, I would like to go and drop the tables and create relationships between the tables. I haven't found a feature like that in MySQL. It was a shortcoming even in SQL Server. MySQL can have more performance monitoring tools. I know Google has these tools, but within MySQL, there are not that many tools to monitor things like performance and database locking. They might be in there, and I might not be familiar enough to know where they are. I am a pretty new user of MySQL."
"When it comes to stability SQL Server is better than MySQL. This is an area they could improve."
"The data masking functionality should be improved as well as the native encryption functionality in the MySQL database."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is okay."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution, which means it is a free product."
"It's open-source and free."
"There is a yearly maintenance fee for the use of the solution."
"The tool is open source."
"There is no licensing cost for this solution, as it is open-source."
"I was using the free version of Firebird SQL."
"It is a public domain system as every customer can install it on their system without paying any license fee."
"I use a free version at present."
"The pricing falls within the moderate range."
"There is a license for this solution. A lot of the time the solution gets bundled with other hardware or software purchases."
"It's an open-source database management system that can be used free of charge."
"It's cheaper than other solutions."
"The pricing is not much expensive, it's cheap."
"MySQL is a cheap solution."
"MySQL Enterprise Support is not cheap, though might still be cheaper than Oracle or SQL Server. They may not have local support depending on where you’re based, but there are many smaller agencies out there that will readily provide support. You’ll need to spend some time looking around."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise63
 

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 needs improvement with Firebird SQL?
We would like to improve the management of very large databases. We have databases up to three or four terabytes, and it's not so easy to manage such large databases.
What is your primary use case for Firebird SQL?
We are working on monitoring software that involves making a lot of measurements with sensors. We store all the data in Firebird, which is why we use It primarily for data storage.
Why are MySQL connections encrypted and what is the biggest benefit of this?
MySQL encrypts connections to protect your data and the biggest benefit from this is that nobody can corrupt it. If you move information over a network without encryption, you are endangering it, m...
Considering that there is a free version of MySQL, would you invest in one of the paid editions?
I may be considered a MySQL veteran since I have been using it since before Oracle bought it and created paid versions. So back in my day, it was all free, it was open-source and the best among sim...
What is one thing you would improve with MySQL?
One thing I would improve related to MySQL is not within the product itself, but with the guides to it. Before, when it was free, everyone was on their own, seeking tutorials and how-to videos onli...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elekt Labs, Streamsoft, wobe-systems GmbH, DRB Systems, Moscow City Hospital #31
Facebook, Tumblr, Scholastic, MTV Networks, Wikipedia, Verizon Wireless, Sage Group, Glassfish Open Message Queue, and RightNow Technologies.
Find out what your peers are saying about Firebird SQL vs. MySQL and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
906,418 professionals have used our research since 2012.