I have heard all sorts of good things about MySQL and nothing bad. If there was nothing bad, it would be the logical choice for most systems so why isn’t it? I was recently in a discussion with some consultants with their colourful Microsoft tattoos recently re-inked and a comparison of databases was required for a project and the common answer (not surprisingly) was MSSQL. The problem I had and I know very little about database servers, is that there was no discussion about alternatives. So being the devil’s advocate, I asked why not Oracle, Informix or MySQL. Oracle is obviously VERY expensive. Informix they knew nothing about and MySQL just drew laughs. Why? From what I understand, it is running some very sophisticated and very large databases as mentioned on their web page.

I’m just curious but would like to know why it might draw laughs if it is supposed to be a very good and inexpensive option?

Open source solutions get that reaction most of the time. People don't seem to believe that a free solution or a not-so-expensive solution can be a good solution.

I have been using MySQL for quite some time now, and I am convinced that it is a very good database. This does not mean that it is perfect and I have had situations in which I chose another database.

Some time ago I had to create an application that had a very high throughput, somewhat 20 db inserts per second. MySQL couldn't handle this because when you do an insert, it locks the complete table and not just the record. Needless to say that this slowed things down quite a bit.

That's just one example where MySQL wasn't the right choice, but I could give plenty more examples where it WAS the right choice. It all depends on the requirements.