Is Firebird reliable, flexible, robust, or secured enough?

[Groffy]

By flexibility, I meant controlling your DB (structure and data, i.e SQL).

There are some DDL operations which are blocked, thats also a question of the database design which should start before start the modelling. It always can happen that you want to change the datatype of a field, that out of any reasons for example a smallint is better than a float, but this is not a permanent process and in any case you can rename the old field, implement the new field, transfer the data and delete the old field definition (as rvk described it already). "Controlling" the structure of your database is also a question of the tools you want to use. Thats a point where the default Firebird installation has not much to offer. For a more complex database, especially with some complex triggers and stored procedures you should use a third party tool for creation and testing. Some are free, some are comercial - depending also under which platform you want to design your database.
Furthermore Firebird has no such build in functionality like replication, full text search, (both as external solutions) ,  XML or JSON datatypes.

[exdatis]

I have a few app with Firebird2.5(embedded and server-client) and I have not a problem, so, it's quite well server solution. Also it working so fast, in my opinion good solution.

p.s. For a many years I used postgreSQL and Firebird , at last my choice is the Firebird.

[JZS]

I must say Firebird 3 is very promising to be up to the many-required-features in any DB. Many thanks Michal.

I already deployed the project using Firebird 3, after it has proved OK (read the post subject) under several tests.
Let's see how it goes after sometime.

Regards,

J

[avra]

Firebird is very flexible. There even used to be a Oracle compatible Firebird incarnation called Fyracle:
http://www.janus-software.com/fb_fyracle.html
It was good enough even at v1.5 to run Compiere (big oracle based ERP+CRM application). Unfortunately development has stalled long time ago. Provided link shows rough features db comparison chart at that time. Firebird stood pretty good, and that has probably only improved.

I used first Interbase and then FB from v1.0. Not much problems since day one. It can even be embedded. If you need max speed and performance possible on the market and you are ready to invest in software and db administrator(s) then ORACLE and MSSQL would be recommendation (from my corporate world db experience), but if you need close to zero administration and just want to simply use it then FIREBIRD and POSTGRESQL are probably the best choices in free db servers range.

[valdir.marcos]

Firebird 3.0 Beta 2 on it’s way
http://www.firebirdnews.org/firebird-3-0-beta-2-on-its-way/
http://www.firebirdsql.org/en/roadmap/
http://www.firebirdsql.org/file/community/conference-2014/pdf/01_firebird_devplanning.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebird_%28database_server%29

[valdir.marcos]

I used to use Interbase on Novel Netware, Windows and Linux almost 2 decades ago.
And then I have been using Firebird (on Linux and Windows) since its first alpha in 2000 with great success both for small and big projects.
I am already using Firebird 3 beta 1 very successfully, with some care of course because it is not a final release yet.

[miab3]

p.s. What do you think about Zeos, is it fast and stable enough?

I missed your question about ZEOS.
ZEOS 7.2beta r3628(currently):
http://svn.code.sf.net/p/zeoslib/code-0/branches/testing-7.2/
seems to be stable.
ZEOS 7.3beta r3632(currently) (with added OLE DB):
http://svn.code.sf.net/p/zeoslib/code-0/branches/testing-7.3/
similarly.
These are the most stable, fast and versatile versions ZEOS ever.
Absence of publication the final version (especially 7.2), primarily due to lack of time developers.

Here I added (maybe less interesting Lazarus users only) package for Delphi XE8:
http://zeoslib.sourceforge.net/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=3795&start=345#p44036

Michal

[exdatis]

Thank you very much, miab3!

[Graeme]

I would opt to use Firebird 2.5.x over MySQL/MariaDB and SQLite any time of the day! Our company did extensive testing for a few months before we opted to use Firebird for all our products. We tested MySQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL MS Access. SQLite is NOT a RDBMS so excluded that immediately. MySQL and MariaDB was a total joke, and nobody should consider that. SQL Server and Oracle were good, but totally out of our target audiences price range. PostgreSQL was good, but required a lot of config fiddling to get any good performance. Firebird was small and simple, and rock solid. We simulated power failures during read/write etc and Firebird always recovered. Moving the DB to different OSes were a breeze and there are plenty of tools to use with Firebird. We have dozens of 10GB+ Firebird databases which have served us very very well over the last 8 years. Local/Embedded mode is a bonus, the new server side tracing support is fantastic and really looking forward to the v3 release.

I can show you examples of why we thought MySQL and MariaDB are a joke - if you are interested.

[Hansvb]

Why is mariadb not good? I recently saw an article where they said that google was leaving oracle and got mariadb

[JD]

I can show you examples of why we thought MySQL and MariaDB are a joke - if you are interested.

Firebird is also my favourite DB but to say MariaDB is a "joke"? I would like to know what bad experiences you had with it. They could help me. 
PostgreSQL in my opinion is up there with Firebird & I'll choose it over Firebird for a client with a DB Administrator requiring DB security because like you said it needs some tweaking for top performance.

[JZS]

The lack of publicity is not giving Firebird its due value. I knew Firebird long ago, but never knew its capabilities until posted here.

Thank you all.

I can show you examples of why we thought MySQL and MariaDB are a joke - if you are interested.

I am interested. I do have some projects using MySQL and MariaDB.

[sin_dragan]

What tools did you use with Firebird during your testing? Can you name them all?

Thats a good thing about FB, I also use it in my projects.

[exdatis]

See:
https://www.ibphoenix.com/download/tools/admin
http://www.ibexpert.net/ibe/ {* excellent! *}
http://www.flamerobin.org/   {* excellent! *}
http://www.sqlmanager.net/en/products/ibfb/manager {* excellent! *}

[Graeme]

Firebird is also my favourite DB but to say MariaDB is a "joke"? I would like to know what bad experiences you had with it. They could help me. 

Follow the link below. I suggest you read the whole thread for lots of surprises. But if you don't have the time, at least read the first message. MySQL simply ignores DB rules and makes up its own as it goes along. The case sensitivity of the file system also plays a role on how your SQL will function (or not). It's all just a bit crazy.
http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,20826.msg121187.html#msg121187

Disclaimer:
As I mentioned, we did extensive testing years ago. At that point MariaDB did not exist. But considering that MariaDB is just a community fork of MySQL, I'm making the assumption that they are still pretty much the same.