Re: DBMS Engines and Performance

In response to Rich Shepard <rshepard(at)appl-ecosys(dot)com>:

> I received a response from the development coordinator of an OSS business
> application I'd really like to use, but it works only with MySQL. The
> two reasons the one interested developer isn't devoting more time to the
> port are a lack of priority and paying sponsor.
>
> However, what puzzles me is this statement: "PostgreSQL has continued to
> fall behind other database engines in both performance and features, so I
> don't see compelling reason to work on it in my very limited free time."

Consider the source. If he chose to write for MySQL instead of PostgreSQL,
he probably isn't up to speed on what's going on with PostgreSQL.

PostgreSQL is anything but behind on both performance and features.

> While I'm far from being totally in tune with the dbms universe, this
> doesn't look accurate to me. I recall from years ago that MySQL was tuned
> for speedy reads so that's why it was adopted for so many Web sites. But,
> hasn't it been only recently that its features and performance have caught
> up with Postgres?

MySQL's features and performance have still not caught up with PostgreSQL.
MySQL's ability to run benchmarks really fast has exceeded most other
databases. Have a gander at the following link (for example):
http://blog.page2rss.com/2007/01/postgresql-vs-mysql-performance.html

> I don't intend to start a major thread as these issues have come up over
> time on this list. But, I would like some response from more knowledgeable
> folks on the quoted statement above, just for my own edification.

I could be wrong, but I expect that a long thread is inevitable.

--
Bill Moran
Collaborative Fusion Inc.