Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Firebird
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
FirebirdSQL is an open-source database which can be embedded.N/A
Microsoft Access
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Access is a database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software-development tools.
$139.99
per PC
MySQL
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
MySQL is a popular open-source relational and embedded database, now owned by Oracle.N/A
Pricing
FirebirdSQLMicrosoft AccessMySQL
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Microsoft Access
$139.99
per PC
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FirebirdMicrosoft AccessMySQL
Free Trial
NoNoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FirebirdSQLMicrosoft AccessMySQL
Considered Multiple Products
Firebird
Chose FirebirdSQL
Back then I evaluated Oracle 8, IBM DB2, Mimer, SAP DB, MySQL, Borland Interbase (not Embarcadero Interbase and that one has the same roots as Firebird) and most likely other RDBMS. Firebird was free, usage was ok, it was (for my application) maintenance free and speed was ok …
Chose FirebirdSQL
Because it is having Open Source License and easy to deploy on windows and linux environment.
Chose FirebirdSQL
As you know, the version of an application is very good for a period in the world of information technologies, it is the first in the performance / cost table. But some periods come and that practice lags behind. When Firebird made such a breakthrough, we preferred this …
Microsoft Access
Chose Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is better for novice users. It is very user-friendly and helps beginners learn data base rather than MySQL. MySQL is for more advanced users which have more experience. Access is also good for smaller organizations. It saves money rather than spending more on …
Chose Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access databases are more suitable for us because we are a smaller team. It's easy for us to export the reporting. It's also easy for people to create their own databases as well! Microsoft Access is honestly a one-stop-shop for us, and we figured we were not at a …
Chose Microsoft Access
Tableau is not even a 'switch-out' tool, it's for visualization so it's not a fair comparison. Against other databasing tools, MySQL is still my favorite may be simply due to being a creature of comfort because that's where I first learned to manage DB. However, Microsoft …
Chose Microsoft Access
[Selected Microsoft Access for] employee learning simplicity, attractive graphical environment and features of Microsoft 365 with responsive Microsoft support.
Chose Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is a bit dated compared to other database tools. It is slower, not able to handle quantities of data that are as large as the other tools, and a bit more finicky. However, it is sometimes the preferred tool for some clients. It also has a lower barrier to entry …
Chose Microsoft Access
MS Access is the little brother to all these products. In no way is it as feature-rich as the competition I have selected. It is, however, great when used properly. It does not have the same level of security, availability, access, or recoverability as anything listed above. …
Chose Microsoft Access
Access should be relatively cost effective because it is included in the MS office 365. But it is not suitable for larger organization due to lack of work sharing environment.
Chose Microsoft Access
We selected Microsoft Access for its lower price and because it is easy to use for any user. Previously in the company, because we were small, Excel was used and I can migrate my data from Excel to Access in a fast and simple way. Besides that, it has organized information that …
Chose Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access is a good data management tool. and it excels in that area, which is what we needed the most. It was simple to use and easy to learn. Database management can be done with multiple users in Access. And we can have reports for data summaries, or for any specific …
Chose Microsoft Access
I find access easier to use than base or thunderbird but if you are familiar with Microsoft Office products, the learning curve is lessened by that. There is no comparision to SQL or MySql, but these are meant for larger more robust database applications. Access was actually in …
Chose Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access can be used on the Windows platform, which most organizations use, especially our own, which is one of the reasons why we selected Microsoft Access. Access was also part of the standard Windows image that our company uses when imaging desktops and laptops so …
MySQL
Chose MySQL
We use Oracle Database for another business unit and in the recent past I’ve used Microsoft Access. While every relational database has its positives and negatives, MySQL has proven to be the fastest and most reliable. Its automated backups have saved us time in redoing mass …
Chose MySQL
It would be hard to make a case for the use of Microsoft Access for any but the most simple of internal business applications at this stage, not because it is a bad product but it falls well short of the power and scalability of MySQL and almost any other databse solution out …
Chose MySQL
Our original implementation of MySQL was to replace an Access database that had unfortunately been able to grow beyond its abilities and scope. MySQL seemed to offer all the benefits of Access (easy to set up, use and administer) with none of the downsides (reliability, …
Chose MySQL
MySQL has a GUI which makes it easy for developers to work upon. It has all features like replication, backup and crash recovery. Also since it is freely available it becomes commercially feasible for people to use this DB. Also MySQL can be easily used as a back end for the …
Chose MySQL
Familiarity: With MySQL, I know what to expect, and that goes a long way. Also, since it adheres fairly close to SQL '92, It's relatively easy to construct queries, views, etc. without a steep learning curve. Also, RAM usage is important (this is true of any RDBMS …
Chose MySQL
SQLLite was not a choice on Trust Radius, and it is the only tool that I have used similar to MySQL and the use was several years ago, so I do not remember the exact reason but there was some function that I needed that SQLite could not perform, and I had to download MySQL to …
Chose MySQL
I feel it's way more user friendly than the previous software.
Chose MySQL
Compared to Oracle MySQL is lacking some of the advanced features Oracle provides but through a detailed business and technical requirements capture process it became clear we would not need these very advanced features. Oracle is stronger on the backup and restore side of …
Chose MySQL
MySQL is much more in depth. Microsoft is more for intermediate users while MySQL has a larger of amount of activities one can do.
Chose MySQL
This software is being actively developed, updated, bugs and security problems are corrected. By choosing this software you will never be without good detailed documentation and professional views from the community. It is a completely free product.
Features
FirebirdSQLMicrosoft AccessMySQL
Relational Databases
Comparison of Relational Databases features of Product A and Product B
FirebirdSQL
-
Ratings
Microsoft Access
7.7
3 Ratings
3% below category average
MySQL
-
Ratings
ACID compliance00 Ratings7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Database monitoring00 Ratings8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Database locking00 Ratings8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Encryption00 Ratings7.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Disaster recovery00 Ratings7.73 Ratings00 Ratings
Flexible deployment00 Ratings8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple datatypes00 Ratings8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
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Medium-sized Companies
SQLite
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Score 8.0 out of 10
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SQLite
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User Ratings
FirebirdSQLMicrosoft AccessMySQL
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(4 ratings)
5.0
(99 ratings)
8.4
(146 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(15 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(5 ratings)
7.9
(18 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
5.0
(1 ratings)
6.4
(5 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FirebirdSQLMicrosoft AccessMySQL
Likelihood to Recommend
Open Source
It is able to handle simultaneous connections when using the embedded software version. It is well suited for organizations looking for standalone servers that can handle high data volumes and still perform well and which is also cost-effective database management system especially when they are working on a low budget.
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Microsoft
As a Material Purchasing/Planning/inventory tracking application, Microsoft Access serves its purpose well. It's presentation is clean, data entry is simple and the ability to customize search fields is welcome. It does, however, come with some caveats; namely, when setting search filters and the need arises to back up a step or two, with Microsoft Access you have to reset, or "clear all", adding extra steps/time to a query.
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Oracle
MySQL is best suited for applications on platform like high-traffic content-driven websites, small-scale web apps, data warehouses which regards light analytical workloads. However its less suited for areas like enterprise data warehouse, OLAP cubes, large-scale reporting, applications requiring flexible or semi-structured data like event logging systems, product configurations, dynamic forms.
Read full review
Pros
Open Source
  • Performance is really fast.
  • It is portable and easy to take back ups.
  • Its open n source and free.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Very easy to create entity-relationship diagrams for various tables and designing mock layouts.
  • Really easy to navigate as it hold[s] the classic Microsoft UI. Another good thing is that it comes with the complete MS Office Suite.
  • It is really fast when joining multiple tables no matter what type of join.
  • Works on pretty much same SQL scripts so no need to learn a new language!
Read full review
Oracle
  • Stable - it just runs, with minimal downtime or errors
  • Fast - well-structured data is quickly written and read
  • Secure - MySQL is easy to keep data secure from people and applications that shouldn't see it
  • Easy to use - SQL is industry standard so no problems with adding, editing and reading data stored in MySQL
Read full review
Cons
Open Source
  • Documentation.
  • No GUI tool to view data.
  • Slow via remote access.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Microsoft Access has not really changed at all for several years. It might be nice to see some upgrades and changes.
  • The help info is often not helpful. Need more tutorials for Microsoft Access to show how to do specific things.
  • Be careful naming objects such as tables, forms, etc. Names that are too long can get cut off in dialog boxes to choose a table, form, report, etc. So, I wish they would have resizable dialog boxes to allow you to see objects with long names.
  • I wish it could show me objects that are not in use in the database for current queries, tables, reports, forms, and macros. That way unused objects can be deleted without worrying about losing a report or query because you deleted the underlying object.
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Oracle
  • Learning curve: is big. Newbies will face problems in understanding the platform initially. However, with plenty of online resources, one can easily find solutions to problems and learn on the go.
  • Backup and restore: MySQL is not very seamless. Although the data is never ruptured or missed, the process involved is not very much user-friendly. Maybe, a new command-line interface for only the backup-restore functionality shall be set up again to make this very important step much easier to perform and maintain.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Open Source
Because it is free and usually zero maintenance. Just the issue of more difficult format updates in the future lower the rating a bit.
Read full review
Microsoft
I and the rest of my team will renew our Microsoft Access in the future because we use and maintain many different applications and databases created using Microsoft Access so we will need to maintain them in the future. Additionally, it is a standard at our place of work so it is at $0 cost to us to use. Another reason for renewing Microsoft Access is that we just don' t have the resources needed to extend into a network of users so we need to remain a single-desktop application at this time.
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Oracle
For teaching Databases and SQL, I would definitely continue to use MySQL. It provides a good, solid foundation to learn about databases. Also to learn about the SQL language and how it works with the creation, insertion, deletion, updating, and manipulation of data, tables, and databases. This SQL language is a foundation and can be used to learn many other database related concepts.
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Usability
Open Source
Usability has improved by unifying the architecture. The only thing's missing out of the box is a simple GUI DB tool for viewing DB contents and maybe running some SQL queries.
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Microsoft
Microsoft Access is easy to use. It is compatible with spreadsheets. It is a very good data management tool. There is scope to save a large amount of data in one place. For using this database, one does not need much training, can be shared among multiple users. This database has to sort and filtering features which seem to be very useful.
Read full review
Oracle
I give MySQL a 9/10 overall because I really like it but I feel like there are a lot of tech people who would hate it if I gave it a 10/10. I've never had any problems with it or reached any of its limitations but I know a few people who have so I can't give it a 10/10 based on those complaints.
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Reliability and Availability
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
I don't think the program has ever failed me. It is one of those programs where there is always a solution if you know where to look.
Read full review
Oracle
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Open Source
This is an open source project. It provides a fair amount of free documentation and I think forums somewhere...
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Microsoft
While I have never contacted Microsoft directly for product support, for some reason there's a real prejudice against MS Access among most IT support professionals. They are usually discouraging when it comes to using MS Access. Most of this is due to their lack of understanding of MS Access and how it can improve one's productivity. If Microsoft invested more resources towards enhancing and promoting the use of MS Access then maybe things would be different.
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Oracle
We have never contacted MySQL enterprise support team for any issues related to MySQL. This is because we have been using primarily the MySQL Server community edition and have been using the MySQL support forums for any questions and practical guidance that we needed before and during the technical implementations. Overall, the support community has been very helpful and allowed us to make the most out of the community edition.
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Implementation Rating
Open Source
Even somebody just starting to use RDBMS himself should get it working quickly, at least if he's got a GUI tool and some SQL knowledge.
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Microsoft
there is no key idea, since it is easy to implement Microsoft Access
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Oracle
1. Estimate your data size. 2. Test, test, and test.
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Alternatives Considered
Open Source
Because it is having Open Source License and easy to deploy on windows and linux environment
Read full review
Microsoft
Excel is a fantastic - robust application that can do so much so easily. Its easy to train and understand. However - excel does not provide a reporting function and that is typically where we will suggest a move to [Microsoft] Access. [Microsoft] Access requires a little more knowledge of data manipulation.
Read full review
Oracle
MongoDB has a dynamic schema for how data is stored in 'documents' whereas MySQL is more structured with tables, columns, and rows. MongoDB was built for high availability whereas MySQL can be a challenge when it comes to replication of the data and making everything redundant in the event of a DR or outage.
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Return on Investment
Open Source
  • Cost effective saving us from paid relational database.
  • Community support.
  • Efficiency in handling simultaneous connections.
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Not having to recreate queries or reports every time you want to use them.
  • Once an item is created and saved as part of the database, you save manpower by not having to recreate them.
  • ROI from a usability standpoint is great. Solid product with great functionality that requires low maintenance usually.
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Oracle
  • As it is an open source solution through community solution, we can use it in a multitude of projects without cost license
  • The acquisition by Oracle makes you need to contract support for the enterprise version
  • If you have knowledge about oracle databases, you can get more out of the enterprise version
Read full review
ScreenShots