MySQL or Postgre SQL
 

The company I work for is looking to move away from our 10-year-old NT4 based network, and Linux is a possibility (needless to say, I'm thrilled by that).

I'm putting together a proposal for the server design at the moment, and I have no idea which SQL server to recommend. I'm not particularly well-versed in that area (I know how to set up both MySQL and PostgreSQL, and have used them for small-ish personal projects, but that's all), so I'm coming to the community with our use case, and hopefully it matches one better than the other.

• < 10 Employees
• Insertions and modifications happen in bunches, though not at predictable intervals
• Queries happen whenever
• The database stores customer information, with several hundred new entries/year.
• We need to be able to import from our old Borland database. (I expect we can export to flat text files and then import those files, but a smoother transition system would be nice)
• Smaller footprint would be nice, so we can keep the server hardware cost down
• If it could last at least 10 years, that would also be nice

EDIT: Yes, I know there's no space in PostgreSQL. My brain put it in there and LQ doesn't let you adjust topics after a post has been made =(

Here's how I choose between the two.. If you're running a blog or some simple php application, go with MySQL. If you're actually running a business with commercial class application with databases, use PostgreSQL. You'll be glad you used PostgreSQL over MySQL when it comes to business needs.

I thought these links would be useful.

http://www.wikivs.com/wiki/MySQL_vs_PostgreSQL
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com...1-1050671.html
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql...2/msg00895.php


Good luck with your migrations ...
:)

Debian Kernel

Umm.. That last link is to a benchmark that's from 2000. The guy testing was running Red Hat 6.0. I'm a thinkin things have greatly changed since then and those tests really don't go into detail of what the system was being used for, etc. IMHO that comparison and benchmark should be discarded. ;)

It makes no difference. I'd go with MySQL since it is widely supported and many applications provide interfaces to MySQL. PostgreSQL not quite so much.

If you are writing your own application and need to pick a database then it really makes no difference.

Both are highly reliable and scalable, well documented and supported by active open communities. MySQL has just been acquired by Sun Microsystems.

All our servers run both MySQL and PostgreSQL and we have applications which use both databases.

I guess my first reply is kind of vague.

The reason I say blog and smaller php applications is that most don't really rely on transactions. MySQL will probably give you a little more speed out of the two. If it's for a web application and you only want speed, go with MySQL.

If you have a more structured and complex database with the needs for transactions, go with PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is more standards compliant as well when it comes to SQL. If you use or migrating from Oracle, Sybase, MSSQL or most other commercial type databases, PostgreSQL is probably your better choice.

Both have their pros can cons, it really just depends on how you'll be using it with whatever application.

evaluatinglinux: I found the wikivs page after posting my question here, and I found it quite informative. I'm not sure I want to take the 2000 or 2002 articles to have any value at this point - a lot can change in 6 years, never mind 8.

At this point I'm leaning towards PostgreSQL. Its closer adherance to the SQL standard should make porting our old software easier. The databse load we have is so light that any performance differences most likely wouldn't be noticable.

The transaction support in PostgreSQL is nice to have too. I don't think it's actually necessary for our workload, but then again I'm not a databse expert.

I'm still open to any more info comparing the two if anyone has it, though.

I think it only matters if you use features which are unique to one or the other. This is a decision which can only be made by whoever is responsible for the databases. In all projects I have been involved in, only the most basic SQL features have been used, so there is no difference whatsoever between MySQL and PostgreSQL.