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Firebird SQL vs Oracle Berkeley DB comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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

Firebird SQL
Ranking in Embedded Database
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Open Source Databases (6th)
Oracle Berkeley DB
Ranking in Embedded Database
10th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Non-Relational Databases (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Embedded Database category, the mindshare of Firebird SQL is 11.1%, down from 19.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Berkeley DB is 5.7%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Embedded Database Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Firebird SQL11.1%
Oracle Berkeley DB5.7%
Other83.2%
Embedded Database
 

Featured Reviews

SS
Research and Development Project Manager at Sixense Monitoring
Efficient data storage with reliable and easy management
We are working on monitoring software that involves making a lot of measurements with sensors. We store all the data in Firebird, which is why we use It primarily for data storage It's difficult to describe how it has improved our organization because we have been using Firebird for a very long…
Emad Mokhatab - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution & Software System Architect at Shaparak
Easy to integrate and manage the setup phase
One of the things that I want to see in Oracle Berkeley DB is a driver for reactive programming. I think the tool's official driver for reactive programming, especially for Java, is the thing that Oracle needs to be more agile in, specifically in those areas of programming that other products are currently going into. Other tools have become more innovative in many areas. I know that Oracle has many responsibilities in maintaining the situation with the current projects and so on. I think it would be very cool if Oracle could make improvements to its projects, as it can help me with my current projects. One reason why I don't choose Oracle Berkeley DB is because we want to go for reactive programming, along with Project Reactor from Spring, but we don't have the official driver for it.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The reliability and ease of management are very valuable."
"I like Firebird because it's very lightweight; it's very light and powerful, and I can do everything that I can with MS SQL Server and Oracle with Firebird, with very easy deployment on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows and great integration capabilities."
"It helps us in detecting all kinds of problems in the code, such as bad quality, unclear code, or any violation in the code or best practices."
"The solution has worked perfectly; I've never run into issues or had to reach out to technical support for troubleshooting."
"We are happy with the event capabilities of Firebird SQL database. We can raise events from it and display them in our application."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution."
"The product was easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is reliable, offers good performance, and is easy to use."
"The product meets all the essential business requirements."
"This product helped us to develop a performance-critical DB backend module in the healthcare domain."
"The tool's performance is good, and I don't have any problems with it."
"We always had predictability, and by using a custom-built data service layer with plugins, it provided us a lot of scalability, fast turnaround for our fast-moving business requirement and huge data."
"As a key/value store, Oracle BDB is simple to use, and it provides ACID transactions for companies that cannot afford eventual consistency."
 

Cons

"I don't think the solution is very scalable, because the scalability of the performance when using more than one process is not very good."
"On large databases, we have some difficulties."
"This solution isn't very user-friendly, or intuitive, which could be improved when it is developed."
"They need to be more reactive and fast. Sometimes, they take too long to resolve some tickets."
"There aren't a lot of people using this solution — it's not very popular in the marketplace."
"It would be nice to have a graphical user interface to handle the product."
"Firebird SQL's performance has slowed since Firebird SQL 3 or 3.5 versions, where they developed over-the-wire encryption."
"It is not easy to integrate the tool with Visual Studio."
"Memory usage becomes a problem when the number of entries stored within the key/value store are quite high (hundreds of millions)."
"I think the tool's official driver for reactive programming, especially for Java, is the thing that Oracle needs to be more agile in, specifically in those areas of programming that other products are currently going into."
"There were some mid-term small releases that caused database crashes, but this was later fixed."
"The product's interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly."
"Environment corruption is a common problem found when a DB environment is used by more than one process on a machine at a time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I was using the free version of Firebird SQL."
"Firebird SQL is an open-source solution, which means it is a free product."
"The tool is open source."
"There is a yearly maintenance fee for the use of the solution."
"There is no licensing cost for this solution, as it is open-source."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is freely available."
"It is okay."
"It's open-source and free."
"There is a need to pay for the licenses and features of the tool."
"I rate the product's pricing a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
11%
University
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise3
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...
What needs improvement with Firebird SQL?
We would like to improve the management of very large databases. We have databases up to three or four terabytes, and it's not so easy to manage such large databases.
What is your primary use case for Firebird SQL?
We are working on monitoring software that involves making a lot of measurements with sensors. We store all the data in Firebird, which is why we use It primarily for data storage.
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Also Known As

No data available
Berkeley DB
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Elekt Labs, Streamsoft, wobe-systems GmbH, DRB Systems, Moscow City Hospital #31
Safe Water Kenya
Find out what your peers are saying about Firebird SQL vs. Oracle Berkeley DB and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.