Michael,

I've evaluated DB Workbench, IB Manager (from EMS), and IB Admin (from
SQLLY). I may have also tried IB Expert but I don't remember. All
three tools are of high quality and offer many great features. In the
end I've decided to purchase DB Workbench for the following reasons:

1. DBW contains all the essential features, certainly no less than any
of the other tools.

2. DBW is for developers, not occasional users. As such it has all
sorts of little useful things that, once you get to know them, make
your work more productive.

3. DBW is developed and supported by Martijn Tonies, who is an active
member of both the Firebird and Interbase communities, so I know he is
up to date on all issues with these DBs.

4. I've also seen that Martijn is very responsive to DBW support
questions and bug reports.

5. DBW is cheaper! This may not be a consideration for you but it
certainly is for my small company. If many licenses are needed then
price can become an issue even for wealthier organizations.

6. A percentage of DBW revenues goes to support the Firebird SQL
foundation. My application relies on FB and I want to support FB
through purchase of products and services from companies that
contribute to the project.

Regarding the visual designer:

DBW does not have a visual DB builder, which in the beginning I
considered a disadvatage. However after 2 weeks of using the various
tools I ended up doing all work only through the "technical" interface.

I've found the visual designer great mostly for an overview of the
database, but there's a free tool (IB Utils) that can read an FB
database schema and generate a very nice diagram - at that it does a
better job than both IB Manager and IB Admin.

BTW, there are features in DBW that you won't find in the other tools,
but generally it's not the major features that differentiate them,
it's the little things and of course support (and for me also the
contribution to FB).

Hope it helps,

Eyal
Bikoret Bona Ltd.