From my own perspective and the tasks that I perform on a daily basis, MySQL is perfect. It has a reasonable footprint, is fast enough and offers the security and flexibility I need. Everyone has their preferred applications and, no doubt, for larger data warehouses or more intensive applications, MySQL may have its limits, but for the area that I operate in, it's a great match.
If you have to manage a lot of different databases from different vendors, you could do well by standardizing on this product. It checks all the boxes for a proper database management studio. You would only have to learn one product to manage them all. However, if you are looking to find a good product for a single database vendor, you might be better off finding a tool that was designed specifically for that vendor product.
Security: is embedded at each level in MySQL. Authentication mechanisms are in place for configuring user access and even service account access to applications. MySQL is secure enough under the hood to store your sensitive information. Also, additional plugins are available that sit on top of MySQL for even tighter security.
Widely adopted: MySQL is used across the industry and is trusted the most. Therefore, if you face any problems, simply Google it and you shall land in plenty of forums. This is a great relief as when you are in a need of help, you can find it right in your browser.
Lightweight application: MySQL is not a heavy application. However, the data you store in the database can get heavy with time, but as in the configuration and MySql application files, those are not very heavy and can easily be installed on legacy systems as well.
Foreign Key Constraint data viewer! This was a tremendously helpful feature that not many other products have. Just pick a constraint and see the data in the child tables! No setup required!
Although you can add the data you require as more and more data is added, the fixity of it becomes more critical.
As the demand, size, and use of the system increase, you may also need to change or acquire more equipment on your servers, although this is an internal inconvenience for the company.
Somewhat laggy performance. Boot up speed was on the slow side and connecting to our database servers was also a little slower than other products.
User interface can be a little clunky. Instead of the usual tree view of servers, databases, and schemas, you are presented with lists that you click on and get new windows to pick the new list of data from. Not organized efficiently.
For teaching Databases and SQL, I would definitely continue to use MySQL. It provides a good, solid foundation to learn about databases. Also to learn about the SQL language and how it works with the creation, insertion, deletion, updating, and manipulation of data, tables, and databases. This SQL language is a foundation and can be used to learn many other database related concepts.
I give MySQL a 9/10 overall because I really like it but I feel like there are a lot of tech people who would hate it if I gave it a 10/10. I've never had any problems with it or reached any of its limitations but I know a few people who have so I can't give it a 10/10 based on those complaints.
The support staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and efficient. I only had to get part way through my explanations before they had a solution. They will walk you through a fix or actually connect in and fix the problem for you--or would if you can allow it. I've done it both ways with them. They are always forthcoming with 'how to do this if it happens again' information. I love working with MySQL support.
MongoDB has a dynamic schema for how data is stored in 'documents' whereas MySQL is more structured with tables, columns, and rows. MongoDB was built for high availability whereas MySQL can be a challenge when it comes to replication of the data and making everything redundant in the event of a DR or outage.
Compared to Microsoft's SQL Management Studio, Valentina studio was comparable, just harder to get used to in the UI department. It ran slightly slower than other products but did save some time with neat features they baked into the product. However, in using DBeaver Community and DBForge Studio for PostgreSQL from Devart, we found different products that the team ultimately decided to use. DBeaver has all of the features we needed most (minus the constraint data viewer) and a more intuitive UI that we were used to. DBForge Studio for PostgreSQL has a very standard Windows look and feel and lacks some features, like database/table designers, but makes up for those shortcomings in the much easier filtering and sorting options right in the data grids. You can even write a query and edit the data returned, which is something we don't see in many of these tools. Our team ultimately settled on the developers using DBeaver and the support team that needs data viewing/editing capabilities using DBForge Studio.
