Delphi: Best database to work with?

[kwanbis]

I'm in the process of starting a Delphi 7 (probably 2006 if i can afford the upgrade) project, and was wondering what DBs are more Delphi friendly, or to put it in another way, what DBs are easier/faster, from a Delphi stand point, to access?

[exterminator]

Actually that depends on a lot many things than the choice of Delphi. It depends on the kind of business your database would be doing? A few things to think upon:

1. Traffic.
2. Kind of application.
3. Volume of data.
4. Your awarenes for a particular RDBMS.
5. Your budget/resources/cost estimation.
6. Support for various db systems by Delphi (I am not aware of its strengths)

And may be more things but I cannot think of more at the moment. Regards.

[kwanbis]

My main concer is from the delphi point of view. It has to be:

1) Native/excellent support for Delphi.
2) Actively developed.
3) Open Source.

I know so far MySQL, PostgreSQL, FirebirdSQL, MaxDB and EnterpriseDB, but i really don't know how do they score at 1, 2 and 3.

Any recommendations? Comnments? Thanks.