Re: PostgreSQL vs. Oracle vs. Microsoft

Quick reply on this - I have worked with Oracle, MSSQL and Postgresql,
the first and last extensively.

Oracle is not that expensive - standard one can be got for $149/user
or $5k/CPU, and for most applications, the features in standard one
are fine.

Oracle is a beast to manage.  It does alot more logging that most
other RDBMses, which is where you start needed more disk partitions
for it to be effective (System, Redo, Archive Redo, Undo, Table
(posibly Index)).  The biggest cost for Oracle is hiring someone who
knows how to set it up and maintain it properly, and it can be quite a
feat.

MS-SQL _is_ expensive for what you get.  MS-SQL lacks many features
that both Postgresql and oracle.  I have particularly noticed
aggregate queries and grouping operations aren't as advanced.
Transact-SQL is also big pain in the ass.

Neither Oracle nor MS-SQL have the range of stored procedure langauges
that Postgresql supports.  Postgresql is certainly the easiest to set
up and maintain and get good performance.  For small to medium
database sizes on systems with limited drive partitions, I would
expect postgresql to outperform Oracle in most tests.  If you have
$25k to spend on a DB server, and over $100k/year for an Oracle DBA,
and you need 60x60x24x7x365 uptime with recoverability, realtime
replication and clustering - Oracle might be your best bet, otherwise
- pick Postgresql ;)

Alex Turner
NetEconoimst


On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 07:30:12 +0000, Gary Doades <gpd@gpdnet.co.uk> wrote:
> Randolf Richardson wrote:
> >       I'm looking for recent performance statistics on PostgreSQL vs. Oracle
> > vs. Microsoft SQL Server.  Recently someone has been trying to convince my
> > client to switch from SyBASE to Microsoft SQL Server (they originally wanted
> > to go with Oracle but have since fallen in love with Microsoft).  All this
> > time I've been recommending PostgreSQL for cost and stability (my own testing
> > has shown it to be better at handling abnormal shutdowns and using fewer
> > system resources) in addition to true cross-platform compatibility.
> >
>
> I'm not sure that you are going to get a simple answer to this one. It
> really depends on what you are trying to do. The only way you will know
> for sure what the performance of PostgreSQL is is to try it with samples
> of your common queries, updates etc.
>
> I have recently ported a moderately complex database from MS SQLServer
> to Postgres with reasonable success. 70% selects, 20% updates, 10%
> insert/deletes. I had to do a fair bit of work to get the best
> performance out of Postgres, but most of the SQL has as good or better
> performance then SQLServer. There are still areas where SQLServer
> outperforms Postgres. For me these tend to be the larger SQL Statements
> with correlated subqueries. SQLServer tends to optimise them better a
> lot of the time. Updates tend to be a fair bit faster on SQLServer too,
> this may be MS taking advantage of Windows specific optimisations in the
> filesystem.
>
> I did give Oracle a try out of curiosity. I never considered it
> seriously because of the cost. The majority of my SQL was *slower* under
> Oracle than SQLServer. I spent some time with it and did get good
> performance, but it took a *lot* of work tuning to Oracle specific ways
> of doing things.
>
> My Summary:
>
> SQLServer: A good all round database, fast, stable. Moderately expensive
> to buy, cheap and easy to work with and program for (on Windows)
>
> PostgreSQL: A good all rounder, fast most of the time, stable. Free to
> acquire, more expensive to work with and program for. Client drivers may
> be problematic depending on platform and programming language. Needs
> more work than SQLServer to get the best out of it. Improving all the
> time and worth serious consideration.
>
> Oracle: A bit of a monstrosity. Can be very fast with a lot of work,
> can't comment on stability but I guess it's pretty good. Very expensive
> to acquire and work with. Well supported server and clients.
>
> Cheers,
> Gary.
>
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