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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

"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution."
"The solution has worked perfectly; I've never run into issues or had to reach out to technical support for troubleshooting."
"The documentation is very well written."
"I find the ease of deployment to be the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"The most valuable feature of Firebird SQL is the creation of databases."
"We are happy with the event capabilities of Firebird SQL database. We can raise events from it and display them in our application."
"I can deploy it on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows — it's very easy."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is reliable, offers good performance, and is easy to use."
"The way that MySQL has improved my organization is that it comes free and also works fine on the technical side."
"The performance is great, as this is a lightweight product that is not demanding on the resources, which is what I think gives it the edge."
"MySQL is easy to integrate. It works with just about every language."
"It is a very stable solution. I deployed the product six years ago, and it still works fine."
"The solution has been very easy to scale so far."
"ACID attributes are the most valuable feature, as data reliability is a top concern."
"From our perspective, it's free to use, it's stable and it's fast and scalable."
"MySQL is easy and convenient for me. I don't need to rely on anyone. I can write the code and extract the information. It is fast if you know how to use it. The solution is not expensive, and most of the developers know how to use it. It is easy to create tables. The solution is stable and has good performance. The connection with AWS gives regular updates, which is manual otherwise and a nightmare."
 

Cons

"The security of the users could improve in Firebird SQL."
"They need to be more reactive and fast. Sometimes, they take too long to resolve some tickets."
"Database sharing is a capability that Firebird SQL lacks."
"The main feature I expect is to be able to work with different databases at the same time because that's a wishlist item for me."
"Firebird SQL's performance has slowed since Firebird SQL 3 or 3.5 versions, where they developed over-the-wire encryption."
"It would be good to have more automation and integration with the tools from other vendors."
"It is not easy to integrate the tool with Visual Studio."
"We would like to improve the management of very large databases."
"We face certain integration issues, especially when we integrate the database with security solutions like IBM QRadar, which affects database performance."
"From a user perspective, the initial setup could be simplified a bit."
"The version of the product with free licensing does not offer stellar scalability support."
"DELETE and UPDATE statements that use a LIMIT clause without an ORDER BY are non deterministic."
"Even for the best database, we always want the database to perform much better, so we wish MySQL would be much better, in terms of performance."
"Improvements are required in character set support, scalability, and big data sets."
"When working with a cluster wide, I have to use the MySQL cluster version."
"There should be more tools to manage the on-premises version and more automation features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's open-source and free."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution, which means it is a free product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is freely available."
"It is a public domain system as every customer can install it on their system without paying any license fee."
"There is a yearly maintenance fee for the use of the solution."
"We are using the free solution, so there is no cost involved."
"The tool is open source."
"I was using the free version of Firebird SQL."
"I use the open-source free community version."
"There is no licensing fee."
"There is a license for this solution. A lot of the time the solution gets bundled with other hardware or software purchases."
"It is open source. We prefer it for POCs because it saves the license cost."
"Microsoft licensing for SQL Server is probably ten times more expensive. I used to work for the government, and I remember when we were looking into upgrading to the enterprise version of SQL Server 2019, the licensing was going to cost 350,000. To get the equivalent in the cloud, it was going to be about four grand to get the same processing power and everything else. With MySQL, it was going to be about 300 for the same licensing. Cost-wise, for sure, there is a huge difference. Would you prefer to pay 300 a month or 3,000 to have the same amount of data resources? You might lose a few options that you need, but it isn't worth the price difference."
"The tool is open source."
"The solution’s pricing depends on customer requirements. A license is not required for the community edition."
"I don't pay for a license."
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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.
906,829 professionals have used our research since 2012.