I think a lot of the reasons people use LAMP is that inexpensive ISPs
use LAMP. The reasons ISPs use LAMP as opposed to other, in my opinion
more powerful tools has to do with the complexities of hosting large
numbers of user applications on single machines.
For instance, I don't know anybody who's ever coded in both PHP and
Java/Servlet/jsp who would choose PHP. You'd have to be an idiot to
choose PHP over Java/jsp. However, PHP is designed to very quickly
induce an application state, run the application, and then archive the
application state out of processor memory. Servlets are not designed to
do that. They are designed to run on a Java Virtual Machine that
remains resident indefinitely. As an ISP you have the choice to let all
your users share the same application state with Java, very insecure, or
run multiple jvms, very memory intensive. PHP works much better for you
because apps induce their state, do what they need to do for each
request, and then disappear.
Similar issues with Mysql. It's faster, yet less powerful for
transaction processing and data integrity than Postgresql. Well, most
people who own their own servers are going be more worried about data
integrity and transaction processing than pure speed. An ISP, however,
wants speed less processor usage. The other thing is that Mysql has a
faster connection/disconnection cycle. You can use connection pooling
with Postgresql which is very fast, but again, more memory and
application cycle problems.
Given the choice, I think Postgresql is easier to work with, more
robust, and easier to maintain than Mysql. However, if you want a $10 a
month shared hosting account, you're going to almost definitely be
forced to use Mysql. Issues of speed? I don't know, but I haven't
reached any speed bottlenecks with Postgresql. Internet connection
speeds and other application speed issues are usually the bottlenecks.
It may just be what I do, but I'm definitely more worried about the
integrety/security of my data than I am about speed.
