Re: FW: [webmaster] Comparison to MySQL - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

People:

So, let me start this on what I see as the "right foot":

PostgreSQL 7.4 Pros:
    -- Extensible Architecture:  create your own types, aggregates, functions,
operators, libraries.
    -- 100% Open Source: contributions are not controlled by any single company,
so your suggestions and patches are as good as anyone's.  Further, you have a
choice of numerous support vendors rather than being confined to one company.
    -- BSD-licensed: may be used for commercial applications without fees.
    -- Fully ACID-compliant:  rigorous compliance with SQL Standard definitions
of data integrity, constraints, and keys; Multi-Version Concurrency Control
(MVCC) ensures transaction integrity.
    -- Industry-leading Reliability: Write Ahead Log system and hot backup give
extraordinary protection against data corruption in the event of system
failures.  Only the highest-end proprietary database systems offer anything
comparable.
    -- Database Programming: Support for functions and procedures in 11 or more
programming languages.  Support for triggers, constraints, and Rules-based
query rewriting.
    -- ANSI SQL Compliance:  Has one of the highest levels of SQL standard
compliance in the industry, including support for Schema, complex Views, SQL
Standard system catalog views.
    -- Resonsive Community:  Mailing lists offer peer-to-peer assistance from
major PostgreSQL contributors and advanced DBAs, often described as "better
than commercial support."
    -- Scalability:  the MVCC system and other parts of our architecture make
PostgreSQL scale very well across hundreds of concurrent read/write users.
    -- Durability:  The PostgreSQL project is 16 years old, with years more
experience than most comparable databases, commercial or OSS.  PostgreSQL has
already survived the death of several supporting companies and will be around
for a long time to come.

PostgreSQL 7.4 Cons:
    -- Ramp-up Time:  As with other Enterprise databases, PostgreSQL DBAs are
expected to have a significant knowledge of the database system and SQL, more
than MySQL DBAs but not quite as much as Oracle DBAs.
    -- No Windows Port:  We do not yet have a  Windows-native port of PostgreSQL.
One is in development.
    -- High I/O Demands:  As part of PostgreSQL's scalability and reliability,
the database makes significant demands on your server's I/O system, sometimes
making it unsutable for embedded or multi-purpose machines.


MySQL 4 Pros:
    -- Extremely Easy to Use:  MySQL was designed with the novice in mind, so
database administration and query issues are simplified to make it an
"install and go" database.
    -- Many OSS Apps:  many web apps designed to use MySQL are available and
ready to be downloaded without alteration.

MySQL 4 Cons:
    -- Few SQL Features:  MySQL does not currently have procedure or function
support, no schema, does not support many types of subselects, and
transaction support is very new with some reported problems and exceptions.
    -- Not ACID Compliant:  Does not fullfill standard ACID defintitions, due to
numerous weaknesses in constraints, data typing and transaction isolation.
See http://sql-info.de/mysql/gotchas.html for more information.
    -- Poor SQL Standard Support:  in efforts to simplify SQL queries, MySQL
violates many parts of the SQL standard.  This can make porting applications
to or from other SQL databases difficult.
    -- Dual License:  due to MySQL's GPL license, you must purchase a license
from MySQL AB for many commercial applications.
    -- Single-Company Project:  the MySQL Project is owned and controlled by a
single company, MySQL AB.   This means that the project lives or dies with
that company, which is currently venture-capital funded.
    -- Questionable Reliability:  Lack of open-source hot backup tools and
automated database recovery utilities make MySQL very vulnerable to system
failures and hardware problems.


--
-Josh Berkus

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