Why Firebird?

HI All

Just a quick question - why are you using Firebird opposed to other databases available such as MSSQL, MySQL, Interbase, etc?

Just curious and am interested to hear what everyone's view / opinion / etc is on the subject.

Thanks,
W

Me, personally


the professional databases Oracle, MSSql, etc are not free...FB is..and you only feel the difference when using with very large databases...but even that can be avoided using a good design

PostgreSQL - is more popular than FB, but i never found a great documentation for that, and also never have seen a good DB designer software

other free databases like MySql are weaker in performance/features


but i guess the 2nd heaviest reason (1st is that it's free) is that in Delphi there are very good and/or free components for FB and i can develop really fast and really high performance DB applications with this set.

but this is all personal...go check for reviews about different RDBM-s and see what your heart likes.

I'll add my 2c.
My personal favourite is PostgreSQL, it's the most Oracle-like popular opensource database and I'd recommend it for any highly transactional OLTP system.
I like MySQL as a fast engine for web apps and for it's replication features.
Firebird makes for an excellent and very flexible embedded database (more features than SQLite and more "embeddability" than MSDE) not to mention a very capable database server.
Also, Firebird is the perfect candidate for users upgrading from the free Interbase6 and other Interbase versions.