I'm building an e-commerce application and was wondering which database to use. It makes no difference to me in terms of development, but I was wondering whether MSSQL was still considered more reliable than MySQL and in general, whether MySQL has matured enough to be used for e-commerce applications. Your thoughts please...
MySQL is more than capable of fulfilling the needs of an e-commerce applications... I use it myself for a number of large apps.
I run two mid-range ecomm sites using MySQL5 and have no problems at all, even in a clustered environment, which used to be where MSSQL proved to be more stable until recently. Also, you can't beat free.
MSSQL - good but very expensive Mysql - from v5 - better database system (free or commercial) yes, mysql can be used without problems for e-commerce solutions.
Agree with gibex, MSSQL is good, but expensive, and if you were willing to pay MSSQL money it would probably be worth looking at Oracle DB as this would probably give you more scope moving forward than MSSQL. MySQL is excellent DB and would be at least as good as MSSQL, and for a fraction of the cost!
By now MySql is a fully mature system in my opinion. I'd go for MySql without a doubt. For any app, no matter what size.
MSSQL is much better if you need to have very large numbers of people accessing it all the time. So I would probably say use MySQL unless there is a very large number of users.
I suggest mySql. I am using both mySql and MsSQL with millions of rows and thousands of tables. mySQL is faster and more reliable than msSQL and it is free
MSSQL is more advanced with views, triggers, procedures, etc.... If you use MySQL, go with 5 or greater because views, procs are now in. But I think that's not as mature as MSSQL is on this. And it's important to use innodb engine rather than myisam to ensure relational integrity between tables/data and to achieve transactions and a better concurency to the tables. In my opinion PostgreSQL is better thant MySQL for enterprise class databases on the features side and the views, procs, trigggers are roughly tested because postgresql have these functionnalities since a long time ago. For ordinary websites, forums, cms.. just go with mysql, for rock solid open source with PostgreSQL, and....... rock rock rock solid: oracle!
free it's doesn't mean reliable. I'm absolutely agree with "zonzon" . I just want to put my 2 cents, management tools and development tools. I didn't find any even close tools as ms management console and database tools from visual studio for mySQL. And there is many free editions from MSDN.
The free version of MSSQL isn't enough for a commercial site. The paid version is expensive. And neither one will run on a Linux server. The Community version of MySQL is more than "mature enough" to run a commercial site and there's a version that will run on any server.
for MSSQL database you have to pay for it to microsoft when you will deploy your website. mysql is open source nobody have to pay for it.
If you believe the nonsense you're reading here about MySQL being "better" and "more reliable" then you're being gullable. MySQL is an excellent DB system, but it isn't a patch on MS SQL when all things are taken into consideration - performance, scalability, reliability, features (triggers, SP's, views), management, logging, integration with languages, backup, actions, scheduled jobs. MySQL isn't free. There is a free version, but if you want enterprise features you pay for it - $2000 for standard, $5000 for Enterprise - and if you want clustering it's $10,000 per server. That's per YEAR. On the other hands, MS SQL 2008 Web Edition - only for online applications, not line of business - can be had from your host for a few bucks per month (I'm talking $10/$20 depending upon their markup). It will support all the MS SQL features INCLUDING clustering if you set-up enough physical servers. Both MySQL and MS SQL are excellent database servers, and for most people it's down to personal preference and experience. I use both, and our customers use both, but if there was a choice I'd pick MS SQL every time over MySQL.
Rukbat, MySQL free version may not be a better performing version over Oracle or other higher-end MySQL version, but with some parameters tweaks it can perform any MS DB version available in the market. Check a performance test I conducted with a client of mine a few days ago and let me know what you think. <br> MySQL vs. MS-SQL: http://bloggersnetwork.net/mysql-vs-ms-sql/ The performance test compares the MySQL free version versus MS-SQL 2008 Developer (and Enterprise) R2 version.