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A great entry to mid level RDBMS
December 19, 2018

A great entry to mid level RDBMS

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with MySQL

MySQL is a best of class open-source database. We have used it across numerous applications both internal and customer facing. It supports standard SQL and is a great starting point for application development. In most of the companies I've worked for and with, MySQL is a central building block across the entire enterprise.
  • Rapid deployment and easy management. Getting a database up and running quickly and a low cost of maintenance is essential to adoption.
  • Supports standard SQL queries and is supported by many of the standard SQL database frameworks such as SQLAlchemy.
  • Supports advanced features such as replication and clustering, allowing the system to scale with need.
  • MySQL's ACID compliance is acceptable, but could be better. Competing applications such as PostgreSQL do a better job with this.
  • Development has slowed considerably since being acquired by Oracle. MariaDB, a forked version of MySQL, is much more active.
  • Replication works, but often ends up out of sync. Clustering works much better.
  • Use of MySQL has allowed rapid development of applications without the need for extensive licensing costs.
  • When MySQL is no longer appropriate for use, the standard SQL language used has allowed other database platforms to be swapped in with little effort.
MySQL is a standard across many industries and is familiar to most developers as a result. When comparing to something like MongoDB, most developers are more familiar and comfortable with MySQL. When comparing to something like Oracle, MySQL clearly wins in the expense category as Oracle is notoriously expensive.

PostgreSQL is an excellent choice for database as well, though it tends to be a bit harder to manage from the systems administration end of things. SQLite is also an excellent database, but it's designed to be a single instance and does not have the same level of support and performance that a more full featured RDBMS has.
MySQL is an excellent starting point for most application development that requires a full features database. When used in conjunction with standard database frameworks, it can be easily swapped in and out as needs change. It's fast enough to handle relatively large data sets with many millions of rows. As with any application development, however, it's not a silver bullet. There are scenarios where it is more appropriate to use NoSQL or caching databases instead.