PostgreSQL: The Other Open-Source Database
Posted: May 22, 2010
MySQL isn’t dead, despite some concerns people have had lately. But if you’re at all concerned about its future, you may find yourself suddenly poking your head up and looking around at alternatives, like me.
That’s not a bad thing. Being agile and able to switch out database systems with minimal fuss possible is good programming practice. And MySQL, while it’s a good lightweight system that fits a lot of people’s needs, isn’t he only game out there.
PostgreSQL is one of the other options out there. It may not get as much press as its more famous little brother, but it’s also open and free.
Postgres is also a great alternative for government or corporate ‘enterprise’ projects that may have thumbed their nose at MySQL before, however unfairly, as a ‘toy’ database. It’s built for security, stability, and has the transaction support and advanced features that high end Oracle users want, while still being easy to use and accessible for users without as many resources.
Also, MySQL users, no more will you have to worry about needing different features that are supported in different storage engines. There is only one storage engine. All features are in one place. You can have fulltext search and foreign keys!
It honestly can be a little bit more work to set up than MySQL on a linux server, due mainly to the way its user-based permission system works, but it can actually be a great security feature, and there are some excellent tutorials out there that you can follow to get it up and running with minimum fuss.
I’ve started using PostgreSQL in some of my projects. It is a great system that at least deserves a look. If you decide that MySQL is still the database for you, no worries. The Sun/Oracle acquisition just underlines the importance of being flexible in your development. If all that happens is programmers start being a little more modular and careful in planning their systems, putting all their database code in one place so it’s easy to replace, that’s not a bad thing at all.
