How to convince people to choose PostgreSQL over MySQL?

From: Tobias May <tobias(dot)m(at)inventati(dot)org>
To: pgsql-advocacy(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: How to convince people to choose PostgreSQL over MySQL?
Date: 2017-06-09 18:58:05
Message-ID: 82b6d6da-93c1-e76c-1799-85291b2d46dd@inventati.org
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Mellow Greetings all,

I'm a junior DBA and PostgreSQL-enthusiast. Last year I switched to a
company where they promised to me the opportunity to dive deeper into
PostgreSQL.

At that time there was a lead developer, who was a
PostgreSQL-enthusiast, too. And there was an agreement that PostgreSQL
is the primary database backend for our product. Unfortunately she has
been frozen out by non-technical decision makers. Now there is only one
colleague and me (without authority to decide) left to advocate PostgreSQL.

Most of the developers in the company are used to MySQL. Although they
seem to accept PostgreSQL some still subtly question the decision and
I'm feeling, that I have to constantly defend the decision for PostgreSQL.

To be prepared I tried to collect and refine as much hard evidence as
possible, during the last couple of months, e.g,
https://grimoire.ca/mysql/choose-something-else,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emgJtr9tIME (some points are not valid
anymore),
http://insights.dice.com/2015/03/19/why-i-choose-postgresql-over-mysqlmariadb/,
http://modern-sql.com/slides,
PostgreSQL is community-driven (huge plus!),
Oracle treats MySQL like a stepchild (understandably they don't want
competitors for "Oracle DB"), etc.

To me all these political and technical advantages of PostgreSQl over
MySQL are more than enough. But the results don't feel "resilient"
enough. It is also cumbersome to keep track of how far ahead PostgreSQL
is in comparison of features and standards compliance and providing
undeniable practical examples.

Finally:
How do I convince people to choose PostgreSQL over a MySQL?
Alternatively:
How do I cope with people, which refuse the available (too few?) facts?

Thank you so much for this little gem called PostgreSQL. Keep up the
great work.

Be well,

Tobias

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