Hi there, I am working with a client that is looking to use a database that is most effective for speed and efficiency on a popular website. I have experience with MySQL, but have barely touched SQL Server before. What are the advantages of SQL Server over MySQL, and what major differences are there for the two? Also, is SQL Server available on a Linux server? Why is MySQL so much more popular over SQL Server? Thanks!
Well I have experience with both and there is really little between the two - but I can tell you for sure that SQL Server is not supported under linux. Unless your website is seriously high traffic there is going to be no noticable difference in performance. There are a few t-sql differences here and there (e.g. SQL Server TOP command versus MySQL LIMIT) so beware of this for bespoke apps designed for one or the other. Thesedays both offer high failover, high performance, multi cpu and multi terabyte ram usage although im sure that for huge installations the licensing costs for sql server will be higher especially when you add the microsoft windows server licensing on top. Linux/Mysql is typically cheaper to host.
If you use Linux at all, SQL server is a no go. It's possible to connect (not host) to a SQL server via Linux, but it's an administration nightmare. What sort of usage are you talking about? How popular of a website? MySQL can scale very well especially when using Percona (extraDB specifically) or Google patches. It's also free, which is a huge bonus once you start getting into enterprise licensing. It's more difficult to manage replication and is nowhere near where SQL server is as far as security goes, but most would agree that security flaws generally exist on the application level and not the database. Anyway, I think that we can answer your question better if you can describe what popular website means and a little more about the anticipated usage, and the server configurations (Linux, Windows, Solaris, Mixed, etc...) of the client.
I am agree with you that SQL Server is not supported under linux... But you shouls choose that according to your requirement..!!
MySQL is free! Perfect for middle size Internet applications. SQL Server has better support of more complicated things and more appropriate for bigger applications… I would use SQL Server if I develop a very big banking system for thousand users.
SQL Server Express is free too...but it only runs on Windows, and has a database size limit of 8GB (for 2008 R2 Edition).