mySQL or PostgreSQL?

[Derek Neighbors]

> Keep in mind, I'm not countering to be difficult, merely complete.  :-)

Thats a good thing. (imho)

> \_ 2. To my knowledge MySQL is not ACID compliant, Postgres is.
>
> http://www.mysql.com/press/release_2002_11.html
> "MySQL now includes the ACID-compliant InnoDB ..."

Cool, I looked on their feature list and couldnt find. Either they dont
think its a feature or they just havent updated the list for a bit. :) 
Thats why I said "to my knowledge" as I could not confirm nor deny, but
last time I had 'deeply' investigated it did not (but neither did
Postgres).  Now it appears both do.

> The same *press release* says that Ziff Davis benchmarked MySQL and
> others (but not PG) and MySQL and Oracle were the happy leaders.  They

Benchmarks are so easy to sway, I put little merit in them short of
performing them myself.  As tuning and application has so much to do with
things.  As stated I am willing to say MySQL InnoDB and Postgres are close
enough out of box, there is not a huge competitive advantage for either
one.  (If you use MySQL ISAM (good only for specific applications) there
would be a significant speed advantage)

> \_ 4. Unicode support does not exist for MySQL.
>
> Coming in 4.1, so the site says.
>
> \_ 5. Stored Procedures are not supported in MySQL.
>
> ... in 5.0.  Also you can extended mysql through dynamic libs now.

True, as are views and many of the other things I mentioned were lacking,
but again we are comparing what exists today and not what is in the
future.  I still run on the mindset for database level stuff I dont like
to run the 'newest' release in production as that is too close to the edge
for critical data. (imho)  I realize not everyone deals with datacenter
type data and so that might not be a factor.

I have used MySQL in high end production for manfacturing (pre-InnoDB) and
paid for it dearly.  I have used Postgres for high end financials and
contact management applications and have bitten by its oddities as well. 
I dont think you can necessarily go bad in choosing either one.

I personally (from my personal experience) prefer Postgres over MySQL. 
HOWEVER, from a licensing standpoint, I think MySQL has a much better
license. ;)  That said, I have been migrating stuff to SAP-DB because it
has the robust feature set, stability and scalability that Postgres has
only with a much better license like MySQL.  It also, carries a much more
familiar name that makes getting enterprise customers to adopt it much
more readily than either mysql or postgres.

I would not however, recommend it to someone just starting to play with
databases.  It is much more like Oracle in regards to needing more
hardware and a db admin to fine tune.

-Derek
>
> YMMV.
>
> David
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