SQL varieties

[Sarah Reichelt]

Thanks to all who responded.

Pierre:

> MySQL (3.2.3) use to be a very unsecure solution. More, it was unable to
> serve more than 10-15 connections/second. At that time, PostgreSQL (6.5) had
> become a very serious alternative to Oracle or Sybase rdbms.

Since it will be completely LAN-based and only open to 6 or 7 people,
neither of these is really a consideration.

> Today, PostgreSQL is still a very suitable solution (more ACID-compliant
> than any issue of Oracle 10/11, very fast in both read and write modes,
> triggers, BSD license,...) and i use it, since 1998, all the time on both
> the Suse, Ubuntu or Mac OS X platforms. Never had any db krach or datas
> loose.... It's no any difficulty in installing PostgreSQL under the Linux
> (just select it in the packages to install) or Mac OS X (avoid the apple dev
> site instructions and prefer the Marc Lyanage specs at
> http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/postgresql/ for the details).

In that case, I might try installing PostgreSql on my desktop and test it out.

> On the other side, MySQL 4 did lots of progresses over the sad 3.2.3 issue
> and MySQL 5.xx is yet a mature and secure rdbms solution. Lots of rock solid
> apps are build on top of it (Typo3, Xoops, eZ Publish, limeSurvey,...).

That's good to hear.

> PostgreSQL installs in the same way on both OS X server and OS X desktop.
> There is no client-side components installation need. About the db
> administration tool, i use differents ones but my prefered is Navicat (100
> US $).

Hmmm, MySQL comes with it's own admin tools. For my limited use I
don't want to have to buy another tool.


Luis:

> I'd opt for PostgreSQL mainly due to the Licence for commercial use (unless that's changed).

That's a good point. This app is for in-house use only, not for
commercial sale, so I'll have to check the licenses. And then again,
if MySQL comes as part of OS X server, what implications does that
have for licensing?


Lynn:

> How small is small?

Very small - about 8 tables with the biggest having maybe 500 entries.
Only 6 - 7 users and no intensive usage.

> Postgre has free going for it, without a lot of concerns that come up with
> the "free" of MySQL. It also has the advantage of being a network ready
> database.

What do you mean by "network ready?" I would have assumed that MySQL
was also "network ready" unless I am mis-interpreting the term.

Cheers,
Sarah