Preferred database

Which database do you prefer to work with if you have the choice?

  • Total voters
    51
I'm more inclined to use MySQL/MariaDB because I'm more familiar with it. Should really spend some time getting to know PostgreSQL a little better. It's always easier to fallback on something you already know.
 
I work with MySQL at work - it houses vulnerability data we get from our scanner. Easy to work with. We have MS-SQL instances but they are way too expensive so we try to minimize the number in use. Our scanner is a combo of open source (OWASP ZAP) and in-house written code so sticking to an open source solution has saved my customer $. I haven't worked with MS-SQL since its was in version 7 so can't speak to it now only that it is expensive. This is in my opinion, ridiculous:

Code: 
Standard - per core    $3,586    2 core pack
Standard - server    $899    Server
Standard - CAL    $209    CAL

Of course Oracle is more ridiculous but that's Oracle...
 
SirDice said:
Go wash your mouth with soap right now young man! :D
Click to expand...
Used MySQL for some time in 2000-2001 (now still use it when necessary). Then switched to MS-SQL not of my choice (job requirements). Compared to MySQL, MS-SQL was a limousine. Not used Oracle and cannot compare it. But MS-SQL vs MySQL are like new car compared to car from 1970. Even latest MySQL is worse than MS-SQL 2000 (as a whole - some details of last MySQL may be better compared to old MS-SQL).
 
To each his or her own. MySQL works perfectly for us and is easy to use. If I were forced to use MS-SQL then I would have to get used to it. I certainly wouldn't say MySQL is like a 1970's car but that is my opinion.
 
It is my opinion too. I was not happy to change DB I used (MySQL) but later I felt the difference.

I read good things about Postgres but not used it yet in practice. I hope it is significantly better than MySQL.
 
Local file-db: SQLite
Server-db: MySQL

at Work i have to deal with an IBM DB2 running on an iSeries, and writing Queries for DB2 is not fun!
 
I used to like Berkeley-DB. That's because it is not a SQL database, but instead a key-value store that is highly optimized, and easily embeddable. Since my problem was very stylized, and I didn't need to support arbitrary queries, only lookup by various keys, that worked really well.

Sadly, I'll abandon it. The main reason is that I'll need multi-threaded (parallel) access to it, and that requires transactions to prevent inconsistencies. And adding transactions to Berkeley DB is pretty nasty; at that point using SQLite is likely much easier. This is the home coding project that I've been avoiding for a year or two now (too tedious), and that forces me to continue running Python 2.x.
 
You mysql users should watch a talk of Hans-Jürgen Schönig from cybertec ... he is doing his talks like a comedian and makes a lot of fun on how mysql handles certain things, just google if you're interested (not sure if his talks in english are equally funny though ...). Of course for various projects I (have to) use mysql, but when it comes do DB servers my heart is with postgres
 
I used MySQL, tested PostgreSQL and like it more, although I do not know if it is more efficient.

What I continuously use is sqlite3 + tcl. For me it is more a programming language and a file format
than a database.
 
For clarification I did not choose to use MySQL but one of our devs did. The database in question is very simple with only around 5 tables and is less than 100mb in size. MS-SQL or Oracle would be like driving a bus to the grocery store. We could switch to a smaller database or other one like Postgresql but the developer is no longer with us and we are simply keeping things alive at this point. I have no skill to modify the code that talks to the database or I could change it.
 
SITUATION: Users want phone list application
  • Technical thug: Writes RDBMS in Perl and Smalltalk. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
  • Administrative fascist: Oracle. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
  • Maniac: Tells the users to use flat files and grep, the way God meant man to keep track of phone numbers. Users give up and go back to post-it notes.
  • Idiot:
    % dd ibs=80 if=/dev/rdisk001s7 | grep "Fred"
from https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/know.your.sysadmin.en.html
 
You can configure mysql to have one directory per database and one file per table. That is cool.
Postgresql is, never touch any file directly except the .conf files.
 
Tested PostgreSQL and MySQL fairly extensively a few years ago, using application software written in PHP. Their syntaxes are different, and particularly so where php interfaces are concerned, so I wrote my own php functions and interfaces to allow them to be used interchangeably. This made it fairly easy to compare their performance, and PostgreSQL outperformed MySQL by a significant margin in terms of speed, and seemed more efficient, reliable, and trouble-free in terms of overall administration.

In 2009-2010, Oracle bought ownership of Sun Microsystems, who, by that time, had themselves already acquired ownership of MySQL. Around that same time, the original open-source provider of MySQL cloned his MySQL implementation off as MariaDB. I never got around to trying out MariaDB, but, instead, eventually stopped using MySQL, which was becoming, in my opinion, more trouble than it was worth. Haven't touched MySQL since.

Also used, and sometimes still use, PhpPgAdmin, which is a fairly useful set of administrative tools written in PHP, but you don't need to write anything in PHP in order to use it. There is (or was?) also PhpMyAdmin for MySQL, which is quite similar to PhpPgAdmin, but I don't think it's written by the same people. There is another GUI front-end to psql for PostgreSQL called PgAdmin, but I've never used it.
 
I had forgotten Oracle bought MySQL 🙁 They also bought VirtualBox. Not to get off track but remember when VirtualBox was written by an actual company named "InnoTek" which I think was the same as in the movie "Office Space". Sometimes when big companies buy things they get better, other times not.
 
I tend to go with sqlite3 if I can. However if the project is considerable, I jump to MySQL. Mostly because many clients in the past have decided to run this stuff on shared hosting that more commonly offers MySQL above all else. They will end up blaming me if my software is "incompatible" with the provider.
 
I chose Postgres for projects that had to be ported from MSSQL 7 due to high data integrity and it has basically never let me down. I only use MariaDB (never MySQL) when software doesn't support Postgres... ie: WordPress. SQLite for little things that can be converted into big things later.
 
I like sqlite too. Has anyone here used RDB(1991) for real work?

RDB is a fast, portable, relational database management system...The data is contained in regular UNIX ACSII files, and so can be manipulated by regular UNIX utilities, e.g. ls, wc, mv, cp, cat, more, less, editors like the RAND editor 'e', head, RCS, etc.
Click to expand...
 
RDB looks too much like a re-implementation of IBM's DB2... flat-file tables aren't the most reliable thing around.
 
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