Alternatives to MS SQL Server for Dynamic Content Website?

Cindy asks: "My current employer has a handful of websites, which are massive and messy entanglement of ASP on IIS with MS SQL storing the dynamic content. As the company scaled down to only 1 full-time temp (me) in IS and a sales manager overseeing servers + managing web sites, the company would like to trim down behind the back. More specifically, they would like to let go of the use of SQL server altogether. I've used Zope before, but I'm not sure how well it works on Windows. Then there's ColdFusion, but I don't know anything about it. What other choices do I have?"

"The replacement has the following requirements:

• Must run on Windows (they're a Microsoft reseller after all)
• Stable, mature, secure for corporate strength (over 10 product categories, each with 8-10 products)
• Easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to maintain for someone who is comfortable with server maintenance and website design, but not too knowledgeable. I'll leave the company by January
• Not too much programming involved. HTML and ASP/PHP-ish are OK."

Comments

Re:Either I am confused, or you are.

[tswinzig]

Great comment except for the EXCELLENT SQL Server part :)

I'm no Microsoft-lover, but SQL Server is THE BEST product they produce. Have you actually used it?

We never have stability problems with it. It's security record is not too bad. It's list of features is amazing. It's speed is amazing. It's really great software. I have heard of things lacking in Postgresql/MySQL which are implemented quite nicely in SQL Server. On the other hand, I haven't heard of anything in Postgresql/MySQL that is NOT in SQL Server, other than their price.