Firebird News

A new version 2.0.7.203 is available.

Visit our homepage and download the demo version.

https://fbm.gksoft.ch

For those who can’t wait for QNAP to release the new versions in the official QNAP App Store, here is the download link.

Firebird 3.0.14 / 4.0.7 / 5.0.4 for Intel QNAP NAS (intel only) can be downloaded via the follow link

https://fbm.gksoft.ch/Download.html

Mustafa on Firebird-general group : I would like to introduce my continued development of TurboBird. The tool was originally developed by Abdel Azem Motaz, but was discontinued around 2015. I took over the code about a year ago and have been continuously developing, modernizing, and extending it since then.

TurboBird is a Lazarus (FreePascal) project and is currently cross-platform, supporting both Linux and Windows.

🔧 Technical Base / Refactoring

The biggest step was the complete removal of SQLDB:

• Full migration to IBX
• No SQLDB used anymore
• More stable behavior with complex statements / metadata
• Overall better Firebird compatibility

Additionally, the project now features dynamic loading of Firebird client libraries and parallel use of multiple Firebird versions (2.5 → 6.0) within a single instance. Thanks to IBX, script execution with and without terminators is now possible.

🚀 Performance & Scalability

The TreeView has been completely reworked with Lazy Loading (objects are loaded only when expanded), significantly reducing initial load times. Performance remains stable even with very large catalogs, having been tested with:

• ~1,000,000 domains
• ~10,000 packages
• Several thousand tables

📊 Monitoring / Low-Level Access

The Activity Monitor provides a display of attachments, transactions, and statements, with the ability to directly terminate attachments or statements when necessary.

🔍 Navigation / UI

• Tree filter: For working efficiently with large databases.
• Reworked tab system: Movable and more compact.
• QueryWindow: Code and result views can be maximized independently. The editor is intentionally decoupled from the theme system for more stable rendering.

🧰 Integrated Tools

• Visual QueryBuilder: Drag & drop functionality to generate SQL.
• Routine runner: For procedures, functions, UDF, and UDR.
• DataEditor (formerly CSVEditor): Supports reading, editing, and exporting multiple formats; includes DBReader integration for data recovery.
• Buildin-Tools menu: For direct access to all integrated utilities.

💾 Backup / Restore

Migration to IBX (Tony Whyman code) has enabled:

• Server-side restore: Recommended and stable.
• Client-side restore: Currently with some limitations.
• Multi-file restore implementation.

📁 Data / Export

• Export to 14 different formats (including Markdown and HTML).
• Clipboard export with limits to protect against large datasets.
• Support for complex data types, including arrays.

🧠 Firebird-specific Features

• Proper support for case-sensitive identifiers.
• Correct handling of quoted / unquoted identifiers.
• Multi-version handling via IBX.
• Automatic handling for older Firebird versions (e.g., DummyRole).

⚠️ Known Issues

• Embedded connections: Please consider known limitations.
• Client-side restore: May be incomplete (server-side recommended).

This is more than just maintenance—it is a large-scale technical refactoring and functional extension. I would be very interested in your feedback, especially regarding tests with different Firebird versions, edge cases, or general ideas.

Best regards,
Mustafa

We have been working on a significant overhaul of the official firebird-docker images, and a pre-release version is now available for testing at:

👉 Pre-release Container Registry

We would love to get feedback from the community before these changes are merged upstream.

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What’s New

Firebird 6 Snapshot Images

The new images include a 6-snapshot tag built daily from the master branch of FirebirdSQL/firebird. This is the first time a Firebird 6 development snapshot has been available as a Docker image.

# Pull the latest Firebird 6 development snapshot
docker pull ghcr.io/fdcastel/firebird:6-snapshot

# Pull the latest Firebird 5 patch snapshot
docker pull ghcr.io/fdcastel/firebird:5-snapshot

Snapshot images are rebuilt daily, so you always get the latest development build.

Expanded Version Coverage

The image matrix has been significantly expanded to cover more versions and distributions:

• Firebird 3.x: 3.0.8 through 3.0.13 (amd64 only; bookworm, bullseye, jammy)
• Firebird 4.x: 4.0.0 through 4.0.6 (amd64; bookworm, bullseye, jammy, noble)
• Firebird 5.x: 5.0.0 through 5.0.3 (amd64 + arm64; bookworm, bullseye, jammy, noble)
• Firebird 6 snapshot: Daily build from master (amd64 + arm64)
• Firebird 5 snapshot: Daily build from v5.0-release (amd64 + arm64)

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How to Test

Pull the images directly from our pre-release registry to see how they perform in your environment:

Bash

# Latest stable (Firebird 5.0.3 on bookworm)
docker pull ghcr.io/fdcastel/firebird:latest
# Firebird 6 development snapshot ← Most wanted testers here!
docker pull ghcr.io/fdcastel/firebird:6-snapshot
# A specific version + distro
docker pull ghcr.io/fdcastel/firebird:5.0.3-jammy
docker pull ghcr.io/fdcastel/firebird:4.0.6-bookworm

We are especially looking for feedback on:

• Starting a container and connecting via isql or your preferred driver.
• ARM64 performance if you have compatible hardware (M-series Macs, Ampere, etc.).
• Firebird 6 snapshot behavior: Any connection issues, startup errors, or unexpected behavior changes.

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⚠️ Important: Pre-Release Notice

These images have not yet been merged into the official repository and may contain bugs. The Firebird 6 snapshot, in particular, is built from unreleased, in-development code.

Warning: Do not use pre-release or snapshot images in production environments. Snapshot tags (6-snapshot, 5-snapshot) are rebuilt daily and do not carry stability guarantees.

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Feedback

Your input is vital to making these images solid before the official merge. Please report any issues, successful test results, or suggestions at the upstream pull request:

🔗 GitHub Pull Request #36

Whether it’s a simple “works great on my ARM64 machine” or a detailed bug report, all feedback is welcome.

Thank you for helping us improve the Firebird ecosystem!

— F.D. Castel

FlameRobin 0.9.16 released focuses on: modernizing CI/build tooling fixing compiler/linker issues , improving packaging (Flatpak), and delivering a set of Firebird metadata/DDL extraction and SQL editor correctness improvements 

https://github.com/mariuz/flamerobin/releases/tag/0.9.16

We’re happy to share the Firebird ODBC Driver v3.5.0-rc1 release candidate, published on April 11, 2026. This RC focuses on improved Windows/ARM64 support, modernized build and CI tooling, installer updates, and a number of compatibility and correctness fixes.

Release page: https://github.com/FirebirdSQL/firebird-odbc-driver/releases/tag/v3.5.0-rc1

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Highlights

• Windows ARM64 support: new ARM64 Windows builds and packaging work to make installation smoother on ARM devices.
• Installer improvements: MSI installer work, plus better handling of Windows “x64 compatible” scenarios.
• Build modernization: introduction of a CMake build system and removal of obsolete build configurations.
• CI and regression testing: a new GoogleTest baseline suite and GitHub Actions automation for build/test.
• Documentation: README expanded with a new Connection String Parameters section.

What’s changed (RC changelog)

This release candidate includes the following changes and merged pull requests:

• Feature ARM64 Windows (PR #256)
• Update OdbcJdbcSetup.iss(PR #257)
• Allow installing as x64compatible (PR #263)
• Windows x64 build installation behavior on ARM Windows (related to #262) (PR #265)
• Issue #251: fix/refactor to preserve quotes in default value column (PR #266)
• Update WriteBuildNo.h (PR #267)
• SQL_ATTR_CONNECTION_DEAD query always returns SQL_CD_FALSE (issue #270) (PR #274)
• Add “Connection String Parameters” section to README (PR #278)
• [1/3] Add GoogleTest suite baseline for regression testing (PR #276)
• Fix bug in null-indicator offset calculation (SQLINTEGER → SQLLEN) (PR #279)
• [2/3] Add CMake build system; remove obsolete build configurations (PR #281)
• [3/3] Add GitHub Actions CI with build and test automation (PR #282)
• Add API_GITHUB_ACCESS_TOKEN (Fix #284) (PR #285)
• MSI installer, semantic versioning, and GitHub Releases (PR #286)

New contributors

• @KoudelkaB (first contribution in PR #263)
• @fdcastel (first contribution in PR #278)

Full changelog comparison: https://github.com/FirebirdSQL/firebird-odbc-driver/compare/v3-0-1-release…v3.5.0-rc1

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Downloads

You can grab prebuilt artifacts from the release assets. This RC includes:

• Linux: linux-x64, linux-arm64 (tar.gz)
• Windows: win-x86, win-x64, win-arm64 (MSI and ZIP)

Download them from the GitHub release page (linked above) and test in your environment—especially if you rely on specific ODBC client tools, BI integrations, or custom applications.

Why a release candidate?

Release candidates are published to collect real-world feedback before a final stable release. If you can, please test v3.5.0-rc1 on your key workflows (connectivity, metadata discovery, parameter handling, and installer behavior on Windows) and report regressions or edge cases.

Feedback / issues

If you hit problems, file an issue on the project tracker with details about OS, architecture (x86/x64/ARM64), Firebird version, client application, and a minimal repro if possible.

Issues: https://github.com/FirebirdSQL/firebird-odbc-driver/issues