[|MiNi0n|]

Just wondered if anyone cared to discuss which of the above they prefer and why? I've mainly used mysql and have had no problems whatsoever with it but I've heard that a lot of people prefer postgres.

[soup4you2]

i've only used mysql and i love it... it's great.... never tried postgres though

[pick-master]

I used PostgreSQL for about 4 years and I have never had a crash or loss of data. It is very stable better said, very mature, it allows a high level of sophistication and has a lot of features that you can find in Oracle as well but not in MySQL.

If you like to write your own applications then go with Postgresql. I know that I didn't write anything good about MySQL yet :), I use it only on boxed solutions, like those that you just install and run (phpNuke, postNuke, OSCommerce, phpBB -when it did not work with Postgrsql ).

Both Postgresql and Mysql have administrative tools : phpMyAdmin and phpPgAdmin or modules that run on Webmin.

If you are into serious development then go with PostgreSQL and you could use "PostgreSQL Replicator" http://pgreplicator.sourceforge.net/, I don't know of any similar project for MySQL

The conclusion is that if you are into just simple SELECT, DELETE, UPDATE, INSERT go with MySQL, if not, or you are unsure, then use PostgreSQL

I hope that my info helped, if it created more confusion then that was the purpose ;)

[frisco]

I've heard that mysql is faster, particularly for selects, but that postgres is more feature rich and sql, rdbms compliant. I've heard it said that mysql is just one step above flat file. I've no benchmarks to demonstrate a good difference; these are just from other people's comments on them.

My experience is with oracle and mysql. We use Oracle for our personnel records, accessed through restricted means and always requiring login/password. We use mysql to cache specific data from oracle and present it via our website to anyone. Various people around campus also use mysql for other projects, such as personal websites - there's no way the oracle dba's would allow oracle access for such projects, and those users have no need for full db features and can find mysql tutorials all over the web.

If you're going to use mysql, 4.0 has some great new features that make mysql a much more robust db. Yes these are things it's needed for a while: row level locking, foreign keys, transactions (these are all thanks to innodb being default db type). Still no subselects or triggers i believe, and stored procedures are a dirty hack last time i looked, but postgres has all of these.

If you've never worked with triggers or foreign keys or other features that have been lacking in mysql, then you should look into them. Like pick-master said, mysql works great for the basics. But if you're starting a large project, then those features can make the difference between a whole lot of dirty hacks and the clean use of a real DB.