Matt, I'll offer my 2 cents:
I use both Pg and MySQL daily now. I used MSSQL for quite a time, but being a small company, when I started to think about scaleability and long-term costs I moved all of my projects over to MySQL. Most of my external projects, however, run Pg, so I spend quite a bit of time with it. Here's my take to some of your concerns raised in a follow to your post: - non-standard sql Yes, though mostly on Create/Alter. The query syntax for 90% of what you do is the same. I find their serial sequencing (auto- incrementing) to be a bit of a pain compared to MySQL or MSSQL, but Pg has a really rich set of aggregate functions that I like more and more every day. - difficult to backup / migrate I find pg_dump to be very easy to migrate between my dev DB server and remote machines. Backing up is easy, as Jordan said. - user authenication is weak Like Jordan, I very much disagree. I'm not a DBA, but in my experience it's very strong. - difficult to setup Not at all. The installer for Pg9 on Windows, is very good. Linux, of course, is well-documented and binaries are available or you can compile. - difficult to manage Not a DBA, again, but between PgAdminIII (Their Windows Client) and my main DB client, Aqua Data Studio, I'm pretty much set in the office. I use phpPgAdmin on remote machines and that works well too. Their documentation is excellent as well. - case sensitivity I've been bitten a couple of times by this, but you can pass a mixed case query without quotes to Pg and it will handle it fine for the most part. I help to maintain an existing application that has to be compatible with MSSQL,MySQL,Pg and Access and there are quite a few queries in there, running every day on Postgres, that have mixed case column names. As long as you pass the values unquoted, they are converted to lower case "in translation". See: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/ static/sql-syntax.html In other words, you may have to do some tweaking, but you won't have t touch every query to migrate. HTH, Jon On Jan 8, 2007, at 2:01 PM, Matt Quackenbush wrote: > Hello, > > I've always used MSSQL and quite frankly am quite fond of it - > except for > licensing costs. I've read a few posts here and there where people > have > talked highly of PostgreSQL, so I'm thinking about giving it a shot > on a new > server (windows box). I mentioned this to a buddy of mine who is a > DBA, and > he said to steer well clear of it. While I value his opinion > greatly, I was > wondering if the users here would care to share their personal + vs. - > arguments for PostgreSQL? > > > Thanks, > > Matt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create robust enterprise, web RIAs. Upgrade & integrate Adobe Coldfusion MX7 with Flex 2 http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;56760587;14748456;a?http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=LVNU Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:266023 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
