Firebird is one of the three most popular freely accessible relational database servers (alongside MySQL and PostgreSQL). Firebird was created by developing the InterBase 6.0 server of Inprise Corporation (currently Borland Software Corporation). It is characterized by availability of many elements from SQL-99 and SQL:2003 standards.

The server has full support for built-in procedures, triggers and ACID-compliant transactions. The application is small in size and does not require complicated configuration. Firebird has many possibilities to connect to the database - natively through API, dbExpress, ODBC, OLEDB, .NET provider and JDBC drivers, as well as native access for Python, PHP and Perl languages.

Firebird is available in versions for Windows, Linux, MacOS, Solaris and others. Installation versions for other systems can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website.