Nick blogs about InterBase. He’s fond of it. And so should you be, according to Nick. He points to an article by Bill Todd that compares InterBase 7.1 to MySQL. Of course InterBase is the winner in the article, but in the comparison of features the PRICE of Borland’s InterBase is left out of the equation. MySQL costs next to nothing: a pro-license is US$440. Interbase has more features (the comparison was done right) but it is licensed on a per-user basis. Unlimited users will cost you about US$4000. If you want to start small, say 20 users, it will still cost you about US$2000. MySQL + online backup option (price taken from the article) ~= 440 + 1150 = 1590.
How about putting that into the equation guys??? Lot’s of people choosing MySQL do that because they don’t need a hot-backup and they want to use a fast RDBMS for free. Since you don’t HAVE to buy a pro license. With InterBase you MUST buy a license.
Interbase vs MySQL