Re: PostgreSQL a slow DB? - Mailing list pgsql-novice

At 03:00 PM 4/14/06, Relaxin wrote:
>That has been my question all along...
>Instead of "beating" people down when they (and others) have a concern,
>rather it's real or not, you guy have to put real concrete information and
>solutions out there to counter these misconceptions.
>
>PG is assoicated to slow, complex, hard to use and arrogant support.
>
>Stop with the "My daddy can beat up your daddy" mentality and show us HOW to
>setup PG to be fast.
>That why, we can ALSO be a voice to prove that PG is fast and not complex
>and eventually disspell the notion that PG is a slow database.


We have to respond with concrete answers to your concerns that are not
real?  Ha ha!

What if we don't care that there are misconceptions out there, because we
have done our own investigation and testing and pg came out the winner?

Complex?  No, just drop in and use it - with a default install it's as easy
to use as mysql - in fact I've found it easier (I do use both all the
time).  If you need complex features, you'll find them in pg - or you can
ignore them.

I would not say that support is arrogant, but it is very problem
focused.  When a specific issue is presented, answers are provided (on any
of the various pg) lists.  Vague questions get vague answers (as is to be
expected).  I think the general consensus of the various email on this
topic hilight the fact that performance measurements are very much
dependant on design & config factors.  So whether mysql or pgsql is faster
is a question only you can answer for your own database and usage
patterns.  Published performance results are also "out-of-date" in less
than a year as new versions of each package are released.

Setup both mysql and pgsql on the same test box and populate with some of
your own data; if pg isn't faster than mysql in your situation, post your
schema, sql and results from "explain analyse".  Somebody here will find a
way to make the query faster.  If you want mysql to "win" the race, take
your question to a mysql list and ask them how to make it faster on that
system.

At the end of the day, speed isn't everything.  As other messages have
mentioned, for some installations, a database system can be made "fast
enough" on given hardware - at which point other features of the database
system become more important than speed.  My database are not humongous;
queries run "fast enough" on consumer hardware - my users are not
complaining; I like many features of pgsql that mysql does not have (also
mentioned by others in this thread).  I don't know of any mysql features
lacking in pgsql.