Re: pgsql vs mysql

On 30 Jun 2006 08:58:27 -0700, howachen(at)gmail(dot)com <howachen(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> I am new to pgsql....I really appreciate the licensing terms of
> pgsql...mysql licensing is a little bit risky to use...
>
> Q. when using pgsql as a very heavy and mission critical applications,
> what are the advantages of using pgsql instead of mysql?

ok, this is pretty much a faq and you can get lots of information
about this from the archives and from the internet itself. However,
there is tons of disinformation about there so be careful Here are
the major points you need to consider, based on my experience:

* mysql performance advantage is greatly overstated, although
postgresql requires you to use certain conventions (example: prepared
statements) to get comparable performance
* both databases (IMO) are very stable. in 6 years of workikng with
both databases, I've never had either 'just crash' without external
mitigating circumstances, a testimonial to both projects
* mysql tends to encourage development in application code, while pg
tends to encourage development in the database iteself. For various
reasons, I greatly prefer the latter.
* pg, in my opinion, has a better unicode handling, although there is
a small learning curve to do it the best way
* pg mvcc transactional engine is better than innodb (IMO), and faster
when used properly
* pg pl/pgsql is much better than (mysql 5.0) stored procedures. you
also have a lot of other languages to use if you want
* pg is generally much more flexible and extensible
* mysql has decent out of the box replication that is easy to set up
(one day I hope pg get hot PITR which is analagous feature)
* pg has IMO much better shell and standardized syntax
* pg query planer rivals top commercial databse engines
* mysql has a few features here and there which are nice...just to
name a few, flush tables with lock, multiple insert, etc

there are lots of other things. if you want to use a mission critcal
database engine for new project, I believe there to be only one
choice, but you have to take a lot of things into consideration;
support, development style, and a host of other factors. If you
follow the pg lists I think you will find the support here to be
unbelievably good.

Merlin