John Newsom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> posted this before - it might answer some
of your questions, Alex.
>Subject: [OT] Witango-Talk: Database comparison
>
>
>I found this on the Yellowdoglinux list comparing Mysql and Postresql
>
>John
>
>
>Comparisons are difficult, but being rather familiar with both, I can clear
>up some misconceptions. MySQL *is* an RDBMS by definition. It is not at all
>like FileMaker in the sense of being a flat-file system with kludges to
>emulate relational operations. There have been critiques to the way that
>MySQL stores data (single file for each table), but data storage and
>retrieval is not a function of the definition of RDBMS. The definition of
>RDBMS was modified by its creator to include ACID compliance, but IIRC this
>is not a requirement but something that should exist in a "proper" RDBMS.
>The lack of ACID compliance is the only real argument against MySQL
>being an
>RDBMS, but it is not entirely valid.
>
>That being said, MySQL does not support higher end functions such as stored
>procedures or triggers. It currently has transaction support using a
>Berkeley DB system, which is in alpha or beta, but appears unlikely to
>be as
>efficient as a system with transactions built into the core DB engine, such
>as in Postgres.
>
>MySQL is very fast--much faster than Postgres, however benchmarks I have
>seen and from my own experience are comparing MySQL sans transactions, and
>of course transactions introduce a significant overhead. But MySQl does not
>scale well. Postgres begins to beat the pants off MySQL at higher loads
>because the MySQl core has a soft ceiling for the number of concurrent
>connections, which causes connections to be queued under heavy activity.
>Postgres does not have this limitation providing it is configured properly
>and the host system has sufficient resources.
>
>MySQL is fast, easier to use and administer. Its flexibility from a schema
>standpoint is better than Postgres. For instance, in Postgres, you can't
>delete or change the data type (even to increase or decrease the size of a
>char/varchar field) of a column without rebuilding the table completely.
>Because MySQL does not have any kind of server-side programming, you cannot
>offload any of the functionality of an application to the DB engine.
>
>Postgres is more powerful and robust, and has comparable functionality to
>the "big boys" such as Oracle. It however lacks the really high-end features
>such as encrypted communications and replication (clustering Postgres can
>only be done currently by kludging with triggers on every object--not just
>tables, but also sequences and others). It scales very well. Postgres has
>various server-side programming languages including its own which is
>syntactically similar to Oracle's PL/SQL, as well as Perl and TCL (however,
>the "additional" languages do not allow executing queries). Thus you can
>offload a significant portion of the functionality of an application to the
>database engine.
>
>Conclusion: MySQL is great for small, quick-and-dirty projects where speed
>and flexibility is more important than reliability. Postgres is best for
>larger projects where reliability is a must and the higher end functionality
>is needed.
>
>Keary Suska
>Esoteritech, Inc.
>"Leveraging Open Source for a better Internet"
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