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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
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (24th)
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 April 2026, in the Embedded Database category, the mindshare of IBM Informix is 3.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of InterBase is 3.9%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded Database Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Informix3.2%
InterBase3.9%
Other92.9%
Embedded Database
 

Featured Reviews

Nasir Niamat - PeerSpot reviewer
DB Consultant at i2c
Has offered a cost-effective option despite frequent technical issues and limited market demand
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this frequent. The good thing is they cover those bugs in the next release within weeks or days on demand. IBM Informix should become hybrid and should include AI features similar to other DBMS systems such as Snowflake, Redshift, and DataBricks. This would help its value rise with the market.
reviewer1991775 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chapter Lead at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
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

"OLTP processing capacity and the availability of information with high availability implementation have been significantly improved."
"It supports multiple applications and business intelligence tools."
"Every version is faster than the previous."
"So far, we do not have a lot of issues. It's pretty problem-free."
"The solution's stability, performance, enhanced functionality, and replication are all great features."
"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."
"We don't have any problems with the Informix Database."
"The solution is quite stable and reliable; we use it mainly due to its general stable nature."
"The solution's disaster recovery capability is very nice because we have these just-in-time dumps."
 

Cons

"The solution lacks some functionality."
"I really would love to have a QT plugin."
"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"This solution is in need of more current tools."
"There should be more intelligence surrounding discovering data to be able to automatically create indexes."
"Continue extending the SQL language for compatibility with the competition's language, including Stored Procedure Language."
"The pricing is a bit expensive."
"I would like to see backups from secondary servers."
"For InterBase, we want Embarcadero to build a stable product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"For me, it's always too expensive."
"I am not aware of the licensing costs or terms."
"The product has reasonable pricing. We purchase its yearly license."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise8
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Informix?
There is a cost reason to move from IBM Informix. It is relatively cheaper than Oracle. The second reason is that moving the whole application to a new database would require significant cost. The ...
What needs improvement with IBM Informix?
We find some bugs in IBM Informix. Maybe we are using it more aggressively than others. Every month or every second month, we find some bugs in it, which is not ideal. It should be rare, not this f...
What is your primary use case for IBM Informix?
We are using IBM Informix for OLTP systems. We are using IBM Informix although it is a technology that is not very popular compared to others. We are using it because our application was initially ...
Ask a question
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Comparisons

 

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 SAP, SQLite, Firebird and others in Embedded Database. Updated: April 2026.
886,468 professionals have used our research since 2012.