Let H(b) denote the de Branges-Rovnyak space associated with a function b in the unit ball of H ∞ (C + ). We study the boundary behavior of the derivatives of functions in H(b) and obtain weighted norm estimates of the form f (n)and µ is a Carleson-type measure on C + ∪ R. We provide several applications of these inequalities. We apply them to obtain embedding theorems for H(b) spaces. These results extend Cohn and Volberg-Treil embedding theorems for the model (star-invariant) subspaces which are special classes of de Branges-Rovnyak spaces. We also exploit the inequalities for the derivatives to study stability of Riesz bases of reproducing kernels {k b λn } in H(b) under small perturbations of the points λ n . 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary: 46E15, 46E22, Secondary: 30D55, 47A15. Key words and phrases. Bernstein's inequality, de Branges-Rovnyak space, model subspace, reproducing kernel, embedding theorem, Riesz basis. This work was supported by funds from NSERC (Canada), Jacques Cartier Center (France) and RFBR (Russia).