On Sat, 2004-12-04 at 09:09, Chad Perrin wrote:
> From what I've been given to understand, that difference in speed has
> been narrowed in the last few years until it's almost unmeasurable. I
> keep hearing, in addition to this, that PostgreSQL is "better" in many
> (pretty much all, to hear the common comparisons) ways. Of course, I
> only have hearsay to go on, since I've not used PostgreSQL at all
> myself, and am not precisely a MySQL expert.
MySQL and PostgreSQL started as two different worlds of thought.
Berkeley Postgres, and its predecessor Ingres, approaches and even code
are at the heart of just about every ACID database today. PostgreSQL is
always an ACID database.
MySQL approached the problem differently, which turned out to be ideal
for the largely read-only/full-record-commit need of most web
applications. The discrete "commit" of web-based apps really made ACID
an unnecessary overhead for databases, and MySQL fulfilled it. It was
extremely innovative in this regard.
>From the benchmarks I saw a couple of years ago, ACID PostgreSQL was
capable of the performance of MySQL, but required 3x the resources (CPU,
memory, etc...). If you were willing to invest that, then PostgreSQL
was the most ideal. If not, or were more hosting, the MySQL was ideal
for web apps.
Today, MySQL has transactions, and many SAP DB technologies are
integrated. So much so that SAP is switching to MySQL, about 18 months
after handing off their technology.
PostgreSQL offers newer functionality, better performance, etc... while
still maintaining its ACID roots.
The lines are now blurred. It's really the application that decides.
-- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- Subtotal Cost of Ownership (SCO) for Windows being less than Linux Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) assumes experts for the former, costly retraining for the latter, omitted "software assurance" costs in compatible desktop OS/apps for the former, no free/legacy reuse for latter, and no basic security, patch or downtime comparison at all.----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 20:12:01 EDT