Investigating Firebird

By Blane Warrene | May 5, 2004 | Open Source

Perhaps it is time for a second look at Firebird, an open source relational database based on the Interbase source code.

Firebird was born when the Interbase source code was released in July 2000 by then Inprise Corp. (Borland Software). There is a whole second story on Inprise/Borland and what transpired during those years – too much to be told here. However, some interesting history can be found on the Firebird site.

Many who have had past experience with Interbase may have had some sour grapes over the db platform (myself included with a past client and a Cobalt RAQ server – ugh). However, the latest build from Firebird, version 1.5, is a culmination of a port from the original C to C++. The system includes solid support for stored procedures and triggers, which is forthcoming soon in other open source databases. Firebird’s advantage is support for these key features dates back many years under the Inprise name (Interbase).

Their latest fact sheet is what caught my eye as well as the ability to load it on OS X as well as Windows, Linux and numerous Unix flavors. You can review the fact sheet at the Firebird SQL site.

Written By:

Blane Warrene

Blane is a writer and researcher focusing on Apple and Open Source technologies. Prior to this, he helped found a commercial software and consulting venture, and worked in the financial services sector as a director of technology and in varying technical roles. Blane maintains Open Sourcery: SitePoint's Open Source Blog.

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{ 11 comments }

Sadi Synn May 20, 2004 at 4:48 pm: Firebird. A Gibson guitar played by Johnny Winter since the 1960s. A hotrod by Pontiac. WHO CAME FIRST?
Riste Pejov May 12, 2004 at 10:03 am: Firebird has “events” that can call your app when something happens in the DB. Firebird has multi generational architecture which offer fantastic concurrency. At the end, Firebird’s installation weights only 2 MB, with a running footprint of around 300 K, and it can handle terabytes of data.
bwarrene May 11, 2004 at 2:15 pm: How does Firebird compared to PostGreSQL? I think both are rich-featured (better than MySQL). But what’s the main pros and cons between them?
I have seen many informal discussions on the two via buuletin boards and forums but have yet to see a full review with comparison yet. Perhaps that goes on my to do list….?
zjcboy May 9, 2004 at 1:39 am: How does Firebird compared to PostGreSQL? I think both are rich-featured (better than MySQL). But what’s the main pros and cons between them?
Tim May 6, 2004 at 7:16 pm: Harry, that’s because they both originated from the same source, hence the API’s are pretty much the same.
John May 6, 2004 at 3:59 pm: Firebird is an amazing product – robust, stable and powerful. And with it’s multi-versioning design, offers superb transaction isolation. Used it with Delphi for years, I’m now working with C# and the open source .net provider. kicks SQL Server’s backside! And even if MySQL offered comparable features (which it doesn’t), Firebird is free to deploy under all circumstances.
HarryF May 6, 2004 at 12:33 pm: Interesting. Never touched Firebird before by seems PHP-wise the Interbase functions can be used: http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.ibase.php (see the top most comment for example)
Tim May 5, 2004 at 7:09 pm: Firefox is a web browser that was formerly Firebird. One reason the name was changed is because of the naming conflict with the Firebird database (which is what this blog is referring to). The Firebird database is the open source version of Interbase (Borland).
Confused yet? :D
Cheeser May 5, 2004 at 7:06 pm: That’s the browser (http://mozilla.org/products/firefox). The reason for the change from Firebird -> Firefox was because of this software’s name.
Jared May 5, 2004 at 6:55 pm: FireFox is a Mozilla product. He’s talking about Firebird SQL which happens to be the reason Mozilla had to change the name
Possibility May 5, 2004 at 6:29 pm: Just a quick comment, isn’t it “Firefox” now?