Re: Postgres v MySQL 5.0

Hi All,

Thanks for your replies.

I'm prototyping Postgres at the moment. I've always been an Oracle man in
the past but the current project won't stand the licencing costs etc. I've
picked Postgres because it grew out of a serious product, Ingres, and looks
like a serious, heavyweight offering. I also like what I've seen so far.

I posted the question because some people immediately started going LAMP,
LAMP, LAMP at me. I'm not going to have time to do a serious evaluation of
MySQL and I was hoping you would provide me with some ready made ammunition.

I didn't expect anybody to do a lot of work, but I did hope that somebody
would point me towards some authorative articles on the web. They must
exist.

I do appreciate your replies, they made interesting reading. You all clearly
believe in your product. However, it is a bit worrying that nobody on the
Postgres advocacy mailing list could point me towards any authoratative
material advocating Postgres over MySQL.

(The last thing you want to hear when you have just stuck your neck out for
a product is that somebody just wrote it for fun and doesn't care if anybody
else uses it. It's a bit scary!)

All the best, and thanks for your replies.

Duncan
-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-advocacy-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-advocacy-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org]On Behalf Of Harald Armin Massa
Sent: 21 October 2006 08:12
To: Duncan Garland
Cc: pgsql-advocacy(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Postgres v MySQL 5.0

Duncan,

MySQL is more popular but I've always regarded it as a bit lightweight.
I'm
told that this is no longer the case with 5.0. Why choose Postgres over
MySQL 5.0?

There are a big bunch of arguments that I would present if on a paid
consulting contract :)

But for free:
a) PostgreSQL has BSD licence, MySQL GPL or commercial. Please consult you
legal advisor for differences.

b) PostreSQL is known for being correct, robust and trustworthy for years.
"Users data is sacred" is the mantra of every postmaster process. Since 8.0,
8.1 and the upcoming 8.2, PostgreSQL is additionally known to be
exceptionally fast.
MySQL is known to be fast for simple queries since years; and with 5.0 on
some storage engines there is announced correctness as spelled with ACID.

My personal decision: To believe in correctness and to build trust I need
time and history. To check speed I run benchmarks, which complete in
minutes.

Harald

--
GHUM Harald Massa
persuadere et programmare
Harald Armin Massa
Reinsburgstraße 202b
70197 Stuttgart
0173/9409607
-
Python: the only language with more web frameworks than keywords.