MySQL Why and Why Not
October 27, 2016

MySQL Why and Why Not

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

Overall Satisfaction with MySQL

I have used MySQL for a long long time. I have used it as a student in college for my personal projects and for huge enterprise grade applications in corporate [settings]. The reason I strongly recommend MySQL over other databases is because it is open source, very very cheap and is well documented. It was an obvious choice as novice college developer then and as a seasoned developer now. It's pretty straight-forward to set up and use so it is ideal for projects with short deadlines. Also, it scales well too.
  • Well supported by mostly all languages.
  • Scales well IF it is configured properly. (A lot of people complain that it doesn't but it did quite well for most of the projects where we used it).
  • Easy to get up and running. Setting it up is breeze and with lots of third party software, it has become even better.
  • User management and administration is not as simple as it should be.
  • Caching and partitioning could be an issue.
  • Although it's possible to create PL/SQL procedures, it's not as good as other platforms such as Oracle.
  • Poor documentation.
  • Since it is not as resource hogging as other options, it is easier to set it up on relatively cheaper servers.
  • For projects with a very small implementation period, you'll be able to get up and running with it pretty quickly which is big deal in a lot of ways.
  • With proper configuration, it scales well, saving a lot of money again.
In terms of what you get with so of a low investment, it is difficult to beat MySQL. However, for bigger companies who want more control, more features and better management of a database with integration support, Oracle or Microsoft would be a better option. The preference for a big organization would be in this order. Oracle > Microsoft > MySQL.
MySQL is a good choice for small and medium scale companies and indie developers. Especially if you are running tight in terms of resources and budget and deadlines. It's easy to set up and get started too. However, for a big organisation, it might not scale well if it's not properly configured. Besides, the administration and user management could be a huge issue if you are a large firm with lot of users accessing the database.