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IBM Informix vs InterBase comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM Informix
Ranking in Embedded Database
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (18th)
InterBase
Ranking in Embedded Database
10th
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Embedded Database category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 1.3%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of InterBase is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded Database
 

Featured Reviews

Nazzareno Maria Rezzini - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports multiple business intelligence tools, but the technical support services need improvement
IBM Informix is a central database solution across various environments, supporting multiple applications and business intelligence tools The key areas for improvement revolve around understanding the current customer trends and demands, particularly in software and database requirements. The…
reviewer1991775 - PeerSpot reviewer
Has good disaster recovery capabilities, but its stability should be improved
The solution's developer is Embarcadero Technologies, but they are not doing a good job. We had a lot of problems in the last few years with database crashes, and they couldn't reproduce it. The database is a little bit more stable today. It seems like the database was developed at night and deployed to many companies and people. Sometimes, it seems rare. Three database administrators are needed for the administration and maintenance of InterBase. You can encrypt the whole database, but it slows down the performance. We used the solution's change synchronization feature three years ago, but it also crashed a lot. If you were notified about a change, sometimes the database hangs up. It wasn't working anymore. They said they would fix it, but we chose to do it ourselves. We no longer trust these features because it costs us hundreds and thousands of dollars if our database is broken for some hours. It was easy to integrate InterBase with other products and third-party solutions. For developing software, that's one thing. If you want to use an ORM (Object Relational Mapping), many software supports Oracle, Microsoft SQL, and My SQL but do not support InterBase. So, that's a problem. I would not recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution a six 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

"It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools."
"The scalability is very good."
"This solution has made financial reporting possible by allowing financial people the opportunity to set Informix to "Auto Pilot" so that they can attend other duties."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"For IoT business cases, having Informix Enterprise Edition work on edge computers, like Raspberry Pi and using Informix replication, makes complex situations simple to build and maintain."
"The stability is incredible. I have customers with uptimes of several years."
"IBM Informix benefits users with high availability and good integration capabilities."
"Replication is a valuable feature and easy to use."
"The solution's disaster recovery capability is very nice because we have these just-in-time dumps."
 

Cons

"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"The technical support services need substantial improvement."
"I really would love to have a QT plugin."
"There should be more intelligence surrounding discovering data to be able to automatically create indexes."
"I experienced poor input/output (IO) performance."
"It would be helpful to have IBM salespeople know that Informix exists, and sell it. Currently, it is completely ignored by IBM."
"In my opinion, the packages could be improved. The version I use doesn't allow for packages. I can do some general procedures, but no packages like in Oracle. So, develop separate modules in SQL language. This would be most beneficial for me."
"The solution lacks some functionality."
"For InterBase, we want Embarcadero to build a stable product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
"The free edition can be enough to handle moderate-size implementations, but you may want a pay for edition to benefit from more functionality, such as replication."
"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
58%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
5%
Retailer
4%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Informix?
It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Informix?
The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license.
What needs improvement with IBM Informix?
The key areas for improvement revolve around understanding the current customer trends and demands, particularly in software and database requirements. The product's performance could be better com...
What do you like most about InterBase?
The solution's disaster recovery capability is very nice because we have these just-in-time dumps.
What needs improvement with InterBase?
It would be nice if InterBase had an update or insert statements feature. The solution integrated another feature two years ago, where you could select statements from select statements. The databa...
What is your primary use case for InterBase?
We have a huge legacy ERP system, where some parts are running on Firebird, and some are running on our main InterBase database.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

Informix
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shaspa, Hildebrand, Kaifa, Ranhill Powertron, Federaci‹ Farmacutica (FedeFarma), Camden Council, The German Aerospace Center (DLR), Myers, Votorantim Group, Doosan Infracore, GreenIvory
OpusCapita, HeidiSQL, ArtGen, Zernpfennig Informatik, Broken Games, BS Software Development, BUSICOM, DK Corporation, Labrador Technologies, Bremmers Audio Design, Peace Keeper Enterprises, WideOrbit
Find out what your peers are saying about Firebird, SQLite, Oracle and others in Embedded Database. Updated: April 2025.
852,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.