> As said, I still use Firebird and still recommend it. But last year
> I was asked to add support for HSQL in one of our apps and I tried
> it. Surprisingly it is faster then Firebird and easier to use within
> a Java program.
> ...
> After a year of intensive use I never had problems with HSQL. No
> problems with Firebird either, but differences in performance and
> the possibility of developing one code to support MySQL/HSQL and MS
> SQL Server at the same time are driving us slowly away from
> Firebird.

Point about creating databases taken. I have currently problems
executing isc_execute_immediate call that would provide the same
interface for the Firebird. For some reasons it crashes the server.

However, I did some testing with HSQLDB and cannot share your
optimism. I tried AS3AP benchmark suite in two modes - in-memory
tables and cached tables. Inserts work faster, especially in case of
in-memory tables, but single user tests were significantly slower in
case of 100,000 records per table (approx. 400 seconds per suite with
HSQLDB against 58 seconds in case of Firebird). In-memory tables with
large amount of data cause big inconveniences when database is
re-started. HSQLDB replays log statement by statement, including
INSERT INTO with subsequent DELETE FROM.

Best regards,
Roman Rokytskyy