Re: To Postgres or not

On Tue, Jul 12, 2005 at 05:16:44PM +0000, Ted Slate wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> I considering moving a product to Solaris/Linux and trying to find a
> good DB. Oracle is out due to cost so as far as i know the only
> reasonable alternatives are Postgres or Codebase or MySQL. Does
> anyone here have any experience using Codebase or MySql? If I stick
> with a true RDBMS then Codebase is out. So that leaves Postgres and
> MySQL. I'm very used to all the comforts of Oracle so I think
> Postgres stacks up better but maybe some veterans could shed some
> light.

PostgreSQL is more like an Oracle, DB2, MS-SQL Server, etc. than it is
like a MySQL or a BerkeleyDB. If your app is more Oraclish than
BerkeleyDBish, PostgreSQL is very likely your choice.

> In other words, is Postgres really that much better than MySQL
> and/or the other way around?

Here's my experience. With PostgreSQL, when you reach for a new
capability, it's usually right there, or at worst it's easy to
construct. With MySQL, you're constantly running into barriers and
having to kludge around them.

> Also, in my searches I ran across an company called EnterpriseDB and
> another like it. Basically they offer Postgres support. So I'm a
> little concerned that I'm just robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Many kinds of support are available, and some of the best is free.
This mailing list, for example, is excellent, and people on Core
monitor it. <irc://irc.freenode.net/postgresql> is good, too. There
are also paid support options, as you've mentioned.

Cheers,
D
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David Fetter david(at)fetter(dot)org http://fetter.org/
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