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Amazon Athena VS Firebird

Compare Amazon Athena VS Firebird and see what are their differences

Amazon Athena logo Amazon Athena

Amazon Athena is an interactive query service that makes it easy to analyze data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL. Athena is serverless, so there is no infrastructure to manage, and you pay only for the queries that you run.

Firebird logo Firebird

Relational database offering many ANSI SQL standard features that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix platform
  • Amazon Athena Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-17
  • Firebird Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-14

Amazon Athena features and specs

  • Serverless
    Athena is serverless, which means there's no need to set up or manage any infrastructure. You can start querying data immediately without worrying about managing underlying servers.
  • Pay-as-you-go
    You only pay for the queries you run, and the cost is based on the amount of data scanned by the queries. This is cost-effective, especially for infrequent querying.
  • Scalable
    Athena scales automatically, enabling it to handle large datasets and concurrent queries efficiently, without manual intervention.
  • Integration with AWS ecosystem
    Athena integrates seamlessly with other AWS services like S3, Glue, and QuickSight, making it easy to build comprehensive data pipelines and analytics solutions.
  • Supports standard SQL
    Athena uses standard SQL for querying, which makes it easy for users familiar with SQL to get started quickly.
  • Quick to deploy
    Since there is no infrastructure to manage, you can start querying your data within minutes of setting up Athena.
  • Supports a variety of data formats
    Athena supports multiple data formats including CSV, JSON, ORC, Avro, and Parquet, providing flexibility in data ingestion and storage.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon Athena

  • Cost of scanning large datasets
    While the pay-as-you-go model is beneficial, querying large datasets frequently can become expensive.
  • Performance
    For very complex queries or extremely large datasets, Athena's performance might not match that of a dedicated data warehouse solution.
  • Limited built-in visualization
    Athena does not provide built-in data visualization tools, so you'll need to integrate with other services like QuickSight or third-party tools for visual analytics.
  • Learning curve for optimal usage
    Even though Athena supports SQL, optimizing performance and cost efficiency might require a good understanding of how Athena processes data.
  • Data preparation
    Data might require preprocessing or organization in a specific way for optimal performance with Athena, which could add to the setup time and complexity.
  • Cold start latency
    Athena can experience latency during query initiation, known as cold start latency, which can be an issue for time-sensitive analytics.

Firebird features and specs

  • Open Source
    Firebird is an open-source database management system, which means it is free to use, often leading to lower total cost of ownership compared to proprietary solutions.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    Firebird runs on multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and MacOS, making it a versatile choice for various development environments.
  • Low Resource Consumption
    Firebird is known for its low resource requirements, making it highly efficient and suitable for both small and large-scale applications.
  • Advanced SQL Support
    Firebird supports a broad range of SQL standards and advanced features, including stored procedures, triggers, and full ACID-compliant transactions.
  • User Security
    Firebird offers robust user authentication and security features to manage database access and ensure data integrity.

Possible disadvantages of Firebird

  • Relative Popularity
    Firebird is less popular compared to other database systems like MySQL and PostgreSQL, which can result in a smaller community and fewer third-party tools or extensions.
  • Limited Documentation
    While there is official documentation available, some users may find it less comprehensive compared to the documentation of more popular databases.
  • Learning Curve
    New users who are not familiar with Firebird might encounter a steep learning curve, especially if they are used to working with other database management systems.
  • Limited Cloud Integration
    Firebird does not have the same level of support and optimization for cloud services as some other databases, potentially complicating cloud deployment.
  • Community Support
    While there is a community, the support response time might not be as fast or as comprehensive as databases with larger user bases.

Amazon Athena videos

AWS Big Data: What is Amazon Athena?

More videos:

  • Review - Deep Dive on Amazon Athena - AWS Online Tech Talks
  • Review - Deep Dive on Amazon Athena - AWS Online Tech Talks

Firebird videos

The Best Budget Drag Car Ever! Pontiac Firebird TransAm Review!

More videos:

  • Review - 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am | Retro Review
  • Review - Firebird Review Six Flags America Former Apocalypse Roller Coaster

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Amazon Athena and Firebird)
Databases
43 43%
57% 57
Database Management
100 100%
0% 0
NoSQL Databases
0 0%
100% 100
Data Analysis
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Amazon Athena and Firebird

Amazon Athena Reviews

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Firebird Reviews

Top 10 free database tools for sys admins 2019 Update
DBeaver is an open source universal database tool for developers and database administrators that has a low memory footprint. It supports JDBC compliant databases such as MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Firebird, SQLite, and Sybase. Its main features include the ability to browse and edit databases, create and execute SQL scripts, export data, transaction...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Amazon Athena should be more popular than Firebird. It has been mentiond 23 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Amazon Athena mentions (23)

  • Vector: A lightweight tool for collecting EKS application logs with long-term storage capabilities
    In this article, we present an architecture that demonstrates how to collect application logs from Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) via Vector, store them in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for long-term retention, and finally query these logs using AWS Glue and Amazon Athena. - Source: dev.to / 4 days ago
  • Introducing Iceberg Table Engine in RisingWave: Manage Streaming Data in Iceberg with SQL
    However, Iceberg defines the storage format, leaving the complexities of data ingestion and processing, especially for real-time streams, to separate systems. While query engines like Trino or Athena excel with static datasets, they aren't designed for continuous, low-latency ingestion and transformation of streaming data into Iceberg. This often forces engineers to integrate multiple complex tools, increasing... - Source: dev.to / 24 days ago
  • Deploying a Complete Machine Learning Fraud Detection Solution Using Amazon SageMaker : AWS Project
    SageMaker Feature Store keeps track of the metadata of stored features (e.g. Feature name or version number) so that you can query the features for the right attributes in batches or in real time using Amazon Athena , an interactive query service. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Spatial Search of Amazon S3 Express One Zone Data with Amazon Athena and Visualized It in QGIS
    Prepare GIS data for use with Amazon Athena. This time, we created four types of sample data in QGIS in advance. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Enhancing AWS Athena Efficiency - Building a Python Athena Client
    If you have not heard about AWS Athena, I encourage you to take a look at this service. You can read more about it here. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

Firebird mentions (3)

  • GitHub - neondatabase/neon: The serverless open source alternative to AWS Aurora Postgres - Written in Rust
    Y'know, this situation is why Firefox bounced off the names Phoenix and Firebird before settling. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Leaving MySQL
    Another big open source DB I'd like to hear about more often is Firebird (https://firebirdsql.org/) which was forked from the Interbase code released by Borland (don't remember how they were called at the time). Four choices of connection model (process-by-connection, thread-by-connection, some weird mix, and in-process), full ANSI SQL, runs on all major platforms, and uses single file databases. Seems to be the... - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • Any RBDMS that supports in-memory and multi-threaded writes?
    For C/C++ Firebird could be an option, although that isn't really "in memory" as it persists all data to disk. Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Amazon Athena and Firebird, you can also consider the following products

phpMyAdmin - phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web.

MongoDB - MongoDB (from "humongous") is a scalable, high-performance NoSQL database.

SQLyog - Webyog develops MySQL database client tools. Monyog MySQL monitor and SQLyog MySQL GUI & admin are trusted by 2.5 million users across the globe.

Microsoft SQL Server - Microsoft Azure is an open, flexible, enterprise-grade cloud computing platform. Move faster, do more, and save money with IaaS + PaaS. Try for FREE.

Sequel Pro - MySQL database management for Mac OS X

CouchBase - Document-Oriented NoSQL Database