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Firebird SQL vs Percona Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 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
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Embedded Database (4th)
Percona Server
Ranking in Open Source Databases
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Firebird SQL is 9.6%, down from 16.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Percona Server is 2.4%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Open Source Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Firebird SQL9.6%
Percona Server2.4%
Other88.0%
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…
Pieter Geelen - PeerSpot reviewer
Freelancer at geelen.io
Reliable open-source database has supported our migration and improved e-commerce performance
Percona Server seems great to me overall. If I had to think of any small area for improvement for Percona Server, it would be around the proxy story. When adding a proxy to manage traffic better, we first tried SQL Proxy, but it never really worked for us, which was unfortunate because SQL Proxy offers better optimizations for read performance. We did have success with HAProxy, but it works on a network level, while SQL Proxy was designed to be SQL-aware and distribute parts of the query across the database cluster. The performance gain we were hoping for with SQL Proxy did not materialize, so we remained on the network level with HAProxy. Databases can be finicky regarding the performance they need. We had some disk I/O latency issues, which led us to use different types of nodes in our Kubernetes cluster where we provisioned Percona Server explicitly. There is a lot of IOPS happening under the hood, and while I suspect the application was not very efficient, it was also challenging to identify that we were experiencing performance issues due to disk performance. It would be helpful to clarify the metrics related to disk I/O latency so we could understand where our bottlenecks are.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 solution has worked perfectly; I've never run into issues or had to reach out to technical support for troubleshooting."
"I appreciate the fact that, once the database is embedded, it doesn't need to be administered, and removes the requirement for a specific server."
"It helps us in detecting all kinds of problems in the code, such as bad quality, unclear code, or any violation in the code or best practices."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is reliable, offers good performance, and is easy to use."
"I can deploy it on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows — it's very easy."
"In my use of Percona Server, I've found that the replication and High Availability features are the most valuable."
"Percona Server's performance when handling large data sets was significant compared to regular MySQL, and it was excellent."
"Percona Server has positively impacted my organization primarily by helping with uptime a lot, as I support a lot of applications and a lot of servers, and it ensures that our services are well monitored."
"Percona Server has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to save a ton of money by not having to use RDS or Aurora in Amazon, which is the public cloud that we are in."
"We find the product mostly stable."
"Percona Server has positively impacted my organization because it is open source, and if the official MongoDB goes in different directions or makes its product expensive, we can still use Percona Server, which serves as a sort of safety net."
"Percona Server's scalability is very strong, as it features thread pooling for over 10,000 connections, scales out horizontally, and comes with XtraDB Cluster and ProxySQL, making it very effective."
"Percona Server has positively impacted my organization by reducing downtime for applications and improving backup capabilities."
 

Cons

"It would be interesting if they added functionality with redundancy, reputation, and variability."
"Technical support and performance could be better. We have some problems with this solution, but we don't know if the problem is with the database or the configuration. For example, sometimes, the users can't access the database."
"On large databases, we have some difficulties."
"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."
"There aren't a lot of people using this solution — it's not very popular in the marketplace."
"Database sharing is a capability that Firebird SQL lacks."
"This solution isn't very user-friendly, or intuitive, which could be improved when it is developed."
"I'd rate the solution five or six out of ten for the possibilities it has currently."
"I also think there should be more use cases and documentation on deploying in Kubernetes with real-life examples, as currently, the documentation is minimal, making it difficult in a production situation."
"Percona Server could be improved to keep pace with other flavors of MySQL, such as MariaDB, and could pivot to be Percona Server for MariaDB given Oracle's reduced investment in MySQL recently."
"It doesn't reclaim disk space when rows are deleted."
"Percona Server can be improved by addressing the lag between releasing new versions of MySQL and its Percona support, and also by enhancing the configuration of performance variables to provide more user-friendly and easier to configure options."
"If Percona had flashback capabilities, it would be ideal."
"If I had to think of any small area for improvement for Percona Server, it would be around the proxy story."
"I would like to add that the user interface is very crowded, which makes it challenging for new engineers to know where to turn, so I had to sit down and understand the documentation before I was able to manage the application myself."
"Percona Server could be improved by adding more advanced query fields, which would be very helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I was using the free version of Firebird SQL."
"It's open-source and free."
"The tool is open source."
"It is a public domain system as every customer can install it on their system without paying any license fee."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution, which means it is a free product."
"There is a yearly maintenance fee for the use of the solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
24%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Percona Server?
I was involved on the sideline when it comes to pricing, setup cost, and licensing. I think the pricing was good. What I appreciated was that they packaged support with the licenses, ensuring that ...
What needs improvement with Percona Server?
To improve Percona Server, I recommend more marketing because many people in the MySQL world know it, but there is a need to let others know that instead of MySQL, they can use Percona Server to en...
What is your primary use case for Percona Server?
Percona Server serves as our main database server handling user information, real-time GPS coordinates at a 30-second interval, and functions as our GIS database, reporting database, and secondary ...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elekt Labs, Streamsoft, wobe-systems GmbH, DRB Systems, Moscow City Hospital #31
Pricefalls Marketplace, Micpoint, Rent the Runway, Transmart, Wattpad, Singular Group, Invoca, 3E
Find out what your peers are saying about Firebird SQL vs. Percona Server and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.