Re: PostgreSQL vs Oracle vs DB2 vs MySQL - Which should I use? - Mailing list pgsql-general

On Sat, 10 Feb 2001 02:39, you wrote:
> Please could someone explain what are the major differences between
> PostgreSQL,

Pro:-

It's free in all senses of the word. ( BSD Licence )
Thus no new licence required if you migrate to more powerful hardware.
It works well enough to run a set of Ledgers.
( Since version 7, I would trust my own payroll data to it. )
It has transaction support.
It has an enormous number of builtin extensions and interface apis in many
languages.
It just goes slower under very heavy loads.

It is supported by a very competent team of developers who are not only
determined to stay at the front of open source database race, but also
quite patently give the impression that they actually _care_ about their
users' problems.

The development releases available from the tip of the CVS tree are
considerably more stable than the run-of-the-mill CVS tips in other
projects.

There are several open source projects at various stages of development
doing what you intend to do already.

Con:-

Documentation is not as up-to-date or comprehensive as perhaps it should
be.
Probably not quite as fast as the commercial products.
The point and click interfaces and support program generators are all
rather rudimentary when compared to the commercial offerings.
All disk access is via the ( slower? ) host file system; no raw disk read
or write.
Neither the replication nor hot backup facilities have had time to mature.

=====

> Oracle 8i, DB2

Closed, expensive, & secret commercial offerings.
Both have good reputations.
Very good point and click interfaces.
DB2 is very well respected as a mature and solid product.

You forgot to mention Informix which has a distant common ancestor with
PostgreSQL. It works well. Its extensive documentation is well written,
but totally chaotic. You need 6 books open at the same time to get the
Dynamic Server installed!

=====

> and MySQL

In a word - Don't. Definately not in an financial accounting capacity.

No transaction support. MySQL is intended as a very fast, mostly read,
data store. The designers have sacrificed data integrity for speed.
It is reported to fall over catistrophically under heavy load.

This URL will lead through to several papers which explain in more detail.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Philip+Greenspun+Why+not+MySQL&btnG=Google+Search

> We are looking to start re-developing our accounts/order processing
> system using a major database (we currently use a 4GL).  We would
> appreciate any constructive advise to help us make the decision on which
> database to use.


--
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 NAME       Christopher Sawtell
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