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PostgreSQL vs. SAP?

Posted by Cliff on from the RDBMS-battle-of-the-heavyweights dept.

Johann asks: "As my friend and I embark on building a large web site using open source development tools, I planned on using PostgreSQL. I was reminded that another 'enterprize' database is now released under the GPL - SAP DB. Since there have been countless Pg vs. MySQL comparisons on Slashdot, I wanted to ask: how does SAP DB compare technically to Pg?"

2 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Marketing 101 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know you seem pretty sure that you want one of those two (Postgres or SAP), but I don't think you should discount MySQL.

    Introduction of a third option. Makes the audience feel powerful and privileged.

    MySQL is considered (even by its detractors...and there are a lot of them!) to be much faster than the competition.

    In this world of benchmarks, is there any need to talk about one database being "considered" faster than any others? Sneaky.

    While other RDBMS makers go on about "tradeoffs,"

    Well, the "tradeoffs" that they were going on about were little unimportant things like transactions which, up until recently, MySQL didn't support.

    the MySQL team has put their money where their mouths are and delivered a database that makes speed the top priority.

    Use of language to suggest the MySQL boys are a bunch of good stand-up guys all around.

    This is vital in the enterprise.

    According to...? Sneaky.

    Furthermore, the latest MySQL releases have full support for transactions and complete ACID compliance.

    Once again, only a very recent phenomenon.

    MySQL also supports a greater and more useful subset of the SQL99 standard than either Postrgres or SAP.

    "More useful"? According to...? Sneaky.

    I am by no means a MySQL zealot (though there are plenty who are, and you won't have to look far to find them)

    Ah yes. This person is an everyman. A reasonable person. You can tell because he talks about the marginalized whackos and does not identify with them.

    Just ignore the fact that he's promoting the same software the marginalized whackos would.

    but I do think you should take all the options into account.
    And Slashdot uses MySQL. Could you even ask for a more shining recommendation?

    Appeal to Authority. Sneaky...

  2. Re:have you considered MySQL? by mosch · · Score: 4, Insightful
    MySQL is great. As long as you don't want stored procedures. Or triggers. Or sub-selects. Or row locking. Or check constraints. Or views. Or inherited tables. Or performance that doesn't disappear as soon as you have a moderately complex database structure.

    Yes, you can now have transactions and foreign keys, but to get them you'll be using InnoDB tables, which don't offer up any significant speed advantage. They run at slightly slower than postgres speeds, in my testing.

    MySQL sounds really good, especially if you haven't worked with real databases before, so you don't know what they're supposed to be able to do, but in the end it's not. Unfortunately, telling mysql advocates this is like convincing a Best Buy employee that overall PC performance cannot be compared by looking at the CPU clock rate.