Hello
Well, dbExpress is a very thin layer between the application and database, so it's faster a bit..
In fact (answering your question), I think this is the only plus over Zeos.
dbExpress, need to use connection drivers, and most of them are 3rd party commercial solutions... and the last time I've working with it, the only way to find a firebird server is through the interbase driver, not a native fb connection, god knows what happens with newer versions of fb.
Other thing, that ones may consider a plus, but I don't, is the fact of dbExpress is unidirectional; means, you can only browse your data forward. If you want to enable "free browsing", like dbgrid and all features of dbNavigator, you will need to use more components, ClientDataSets and more.. dunno, but it looks dirty
Also, I think Zeos is quite easy to use and deploy.. If you already worked with BDE or Dbase in delphi environment, the changes in code would be minor things, enabling your application to establish a native connection with the major known databases avaliable today.
that's my opinion
regards... and sorry about the bad english