PostgreSQL or mySQL

Anon

What would you recommend, PostgreSQL or mySQL?
I have the opportunity to set up a system using either of these. I have worked extensively with mySQL but wonder what (if any) benefits there are moving over to PostgreSQL.

Thanks in advance.

Anon

A little info on this site

http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/smith20010821.php3

talks about MySQL and progresSQL and preformance a bit, read it, its a good articel.

Anon

Hi Ed,

There are massive benefits in moving to PostgreSQL. The problem for most MySQL users is because MySQL is so painfully limited, they simply don't know what they are missing out on!

For example: foreign keys, triggers, subselects, views, rules, stored procedures, custom datatypes, operators, partial indices, functional indices, etc.

Postgres also has much better transaction support, it has a write-ahead log - so you never lose data during a power off.

Coming from MySQL, it will take you a little while to come to grips with it. It also does not hold your hand! You will need to do your own indexing and you will almost certainly need to do some server tuning for best performance. BUT IT'S WORTH IT!!!

I used to use MySQL and now I cannot emphasise enough how much better Postgres is.

Hopefully on Monday, version 7.2 of Postgres will be released - I suggest using that version over all others.

Chris

Anon

Thank for your advice. Do you know whether it is possible to run both of them side by side on a server. I am going to do more research into PostgreSQL as it sounds very interesting but wouldn't want it to give me a massive learning curve to deal with.

Thanks again.

Anon

Hi Ed,

It sure is possible to run them both - our server at work is currently doing just that! (For legacy apps)

Chris