HQbird: Advanced FirebirdSQL
HQbird is an enterprise Firebird distribution for large and highly loaded databases - stronger server performance plus tools for monitoring, backups, replication, recovery, and maintenance so teams often do not need a dedicated DBA. Use it with existing Firebird databases without changing structure or metadata; switch back to vanilla Firebird anytime without backup/restore.
Why HQbird
Speed
Better defaults, core and optimizer improvements, connection pooling, multi-threaded backup/restore/sweep, and read-only replicas for reports and BI - without rewriting the application.
Protection
Verified and incremental backups, optional cloud transfer (FTP/S3), native replication mirrors, AES-256 encryption, and recovery tools in the distribution.
Ops at scale
Silent install/update, automatic maintenance, and HQCenter so one person can watch many servers - alerts, backups, and health on one page.
100% Firebird compatible
HQbird is an enterprise build of open-source Firebird - not a different database. No backup/restore when switching, no SQL or client rewrite. You can run HQbird and vanilla Firebird on the same server and move a database file between them.
Many HQbird capabilities (replication, connection pooling, multi-threaded backup, and more) later appear in vanilla Firebird. Bugs fixed in HQbird are fixed in the matching vanilla versions. Public reliability and performance results are on firebirdtest.com.
Features by Firebird version
Full detail is in the HQbird 2024 Description (PDF).
| # | Feature | V5.0 | V4.0 | V3.0 | V2.5 | Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | High-performance native replication | X | X | X | X | server |
| 2 | Replacing queries “in the air” | X | X | X | X | server |
| 3 | Plugins to access ODBC/MySQL through Execute Statement On External | X | X | X | server | |
| 4 | Caching BLOBs in temp space | X | X | X | X | server |
| 5 | Improvements in optimizer for JOINs and large sortings | X | X | X | server | |
| 6 | Cache of compiled statements | X | X | X | server | |
| 7 | Streaming / Change Data Capture (Kafka, JSON, etc.) | X | X | plugin | ||
| 8 | Full Text Search | X | X | X | plugin | |
| 9 | Multi-thread backup/restore/sweep, creation of indices | X | X | X | X | server |
| 10 | Parallel reading of consistent data | X | X | X | X | server |
| 11 | Materialized Views | X | server | |||
| 12 | Concurrent index creation | X | server | |||
| 13 | Pool of external connections | X | X | X | X | server |
| 14 | Encryption | X | X | X | plugin | |
| 15 | Automatic correction of firebird.conf (DefaultDbCachePages) | X | X | X | X | server |
| 16 | Advanced monitoring of performance (trace, MON$, locks, CPU, RAM) | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 17 | Monitoring of queries with large sortings | X | X | X | X | server |
| 18 | Manage (and configure replication) many databases with command-line tools | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 19 | Backups, restore, and automatic backup/restore | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 20 | Transfer backups, segments, etc. through FTP/sockets/Amazon S3 | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 21 | Advanced database maintenance: proper garbage collection and more | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 22 | Multi-instance support | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 23 | Silent installation on Windows and Linux | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 24 | Tool to analyze database statistics | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 25 | Tool to analyze connections/transactions/memory/IO | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 26 | Recovery tools | X | X | X | X | tools |
| 27 | Optimized configurations | X | X | X | X | tools |
Also included
- Recovery toolkit - FirstAID, IBBackupSurgeon, and IBUndelete ship with HQbird
- Cloud & Docker - web console-friendly setup; images on DigitalOcean, SaveInCloud, and Docker on request - details
- Streaming / CDC - push table changes to Kafka, RabbitMQ, MongoDB, or files (Firebird 4/5)
- Migration Framework - semi-automatic upgrades across many servers - Migration Framework
- Enterprise support - tools plus expert hours and SLA - subscription plans