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MySQL for the People
October 05, 2016

MySQL for the People

Kevin Dimond | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with MySQL

The choice to use MySQL was obvious because it was open source, easily accessible and free. I needed to deliver a web app that would target a small initial audience and scale to a wider audience in a short period of time. I could have chosen other offerings but I needed to deliver this app in a short delivery window. With the help of MySQL, I was able to meet that deadline and scale the app to thousands of users. While it was eventually replaced by another application, it always ran smoothly, and never went down. MySQL will always be my first database love.
  • Quick deployment
  • Ease of use
  • Scalability
  • Performance
  • Full joins are not supported but you can emulate them
  • No check constraints
  • Negative impact of installing MySQL first and doing a rip-and-replace can prove costly. Depends on what you're building. This is where project scope is crucial.
  • Positive impact of installing MySQL first is that the upfront licensing cost is nothing. You really have nothing to lose here.
Postgres, SQL Server, DB2, Oracle, DashDB, MongoDB, RedShift - all of them have their strengths and weaknesses. I will say this about MySQL though, it is generally the first database chosen by a startup. It's easy to use, easy to deploy, free, and it just works.
If you need to provide a working prototype quickly, MySQL is the first database I grab. If you need to build a small and efficient web appilcation, MySQL is the first choice. Further considerations must be made if you have large or epic installations that you are attempting to build. However, with that said, MySQL can handle just about anything you throw at it, if it's configured properly and your deployment is well thought out.