Who is better?

A quite interesting message/answer posted by Ann Harrison in the Firebird-Architect discussion list.

Re: [Firebird-Architect] Firdbird 2.0 vs the World
Posted by: “Ann W. Harrison”
Date: Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:55 am ((PST))

rvbyron wrote:
open source databases, however, the list is not very extensive. Further,most of the comparisons are not referencing Firebird 2.0, but an earlier version of Firebird.

As you point out, legitimate comparisons are very hard to do and really can be done only by groups that include
experts in each database – something that the open source world hasn’t found the time or energy to do.

There was a recent thread on the support list comparing
Firebird to Postgres.

I am hoping that someone could point me in the direction of something that would tell me:
* Why is Firebird 2.0 better than MySQL or Postgres?

None of the three is better than the others in general – each is better in some cases and worse in others. Postgres is very extensible and has lots of built-in features for GIS data. MySQL allows you to copy tables between databases (feature or bug?) and has several different storage engines for different purposes and lots of interesting non-standard features. Firebird has better support for character sets and collations than either of the others. Firebird has an embedded configuration. Postgres doesn’t, and MySQL hasn’t built one for its 5.0 release.

Firebird and Postgres are free for all uses. MySQL requires a paid license for commercial redistribution. If you’re thinking of packaging and selling an application, Firebird probably fights back less than the others because the database is a single file rather than a directory tree and the embedded configuration is self-contained.

* Feature per feature, how does Firebird 2.0 stack up?

Pretty well in standard compliance and feature consistency. Postgres is also good here. MySQL tends to be quirkier.

* Are there comparisons showing Administrative, Programmatic, and Performance between the databases (including Firebird 2.0)?

No, and several of the best administration tools are cross platform, as are interfaces like JDBC and OLE DB. Performance is entirely in the eye of the beholder. I’ve seen benchmarks that show that Firebird beats the others, and benchmarks where it doesn’t. Here’s one set from SQLite…

http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=SpeedComparison

An article from one or more of you who are knowledgeable in the subject could really help out the adoption of FB 2.0.

A few success stories would help too.

Best,

Ann