My rule of thumb is use threads if you need realtime communication between threads, as they are running. If you don't need that, its better to fork, only because memory cleanup is better, and it's easier on the system resources.
As far as your memory leak goes, there are ways to fix it, but you need to show some code. Usually it involves reusing threads.... don't detach them and expect them to go away.... threads must return or reach the end of their code block to be joined, or self-destruct if detached. Maybe your database connection isn't finishing completely, and the threads are not allowed to destruct.
