Re: Oracle and Postgresql

At 2:29pm -0400 on Sun, 31 Aug 2008, Srinivas wrote:
> I want to compare both of them in terms of functionality, performance,
> advantages and disadvantages.

If you publish anything, watch out for the Oracle licensing no-nos.
Specifically, I believe they disallow certain comparisons. I believe
performance is one of them.

> Why most enterprises prefer Oracle than Postgres even though it is
> free and has a decent enough user community.

Many reasons, some legit, some not. I expect a Greg or two will
seriously add to and correct this list, but:

1. Oracle was "first", and has vendor lock-in momentum.
2. Oracle is still the "de facto" in terms of
speed/performance/concurrency (but that gap is closing fast)
3. Oracle has application lock-in as well. There've more than a few
threads on this list regarding which applications.
4. Oracle is company-backed, so there is ostensibly "someone to blame"
or sue if something goes wrong. Don't underestimate the managerial
"need" for blame.
5. Influencing individuals within a company may prefer it *because* it's
expensive, as it helps "justify" their higher salary.
6. Mucho better advertising to the right people. Much harder for an
open source project to fund advertising to the same level.
7. Though I don't personally buy it, I have heard others complain
loudly that there is no print-version of Postgres documentation.

There's a starting list.

Kevin