Interbase to Firebird

Created by: Lester Caine, Last modification: 21 April 2026

 

Interbase was actually developed by Jim Starkey, a renowned database expert, and his company, GrokNet.

In 1984, Jim Starkey's company, GrokNet, developed a database management system called Interbase.

Borland acquired Interbase from GrokNet in 1985 and began to market and distribute it as their own product.

Interbase was known for its reliability, scalability, and ease of use, making it a popular choice for building database-driven applications. It was also widely used in the 1990s, particularly with Borland's development tools such as Borland C++ Builder (BCB) and Delphi.

In 1999, Borland released Interbase 6, which was a significant update to the product. However, in 2000, Borland announced that it would be discontinuing Interbase and replacing it with a new product called "Interbase Developer Edition".

But, as you mentioned, the open-source project Firebird was forked from Interbase 6 in 2000, and it has since become a popular alternative to Interbase.

Firebird has continued to evolve and improve over the years, and it's still widely used today in many applications.

Here's a brief timeline of Interbase and Firebird:

  • 1984: Interbase is developed by Jim Starkey at his company GrokNet.
  • 1985: Interbase aquired by Borland
  • (Need to fill in a few more stages as I started with IB4?)
  • 1999: Borland releases Interbase 6
  • 2000: Borland discontinues Interbase and Firebird is forked from Interbase 6
  • 2000s: Firebird continues to evolve and improve as an open-source alternative to Interbase
  • (Need to add the Firebird time line)

It is nice to see that Firebird is maintaining it's 33rd place in the database rankings and 20th in relational databases while Interbase is continues to fall down at 82nd place. db-engines has a nice independent summary of capabilities. It also manages 4th place in a recent list of open source databases