As is the case with development languages, a developer’s familiarity generally determines preference. And as is the case with development languages, cost and performance are the only quantifiable measurements. MySQL is the cheapest database to purchase, however, it is intended only for small and medium sized applications. In addition, it is commonly believed to be more difficult to maintain and less powerful than both SQL Server and Oracle.
Since MySQL does not participate in the tests conducted by TPC (Transaction Processing Performance Council), an independent analysis firm that gauges the performance of databases, it cannot be compared to other systems such as SQL Server and Oracle. While Oracle has consistently outperformed SQL Server, the licensing costs place it out of reach of small and medium sized businesses. Oracle is intended for large-scale, enterprise applications and is generally not offered by web hosts.
While both SQL Server and MySQL are viable options for small and medium sized websites, .Net comes with native support for SQL Server, making it easier to implement .Net solutions using SQL Server, while increasing performance due to the native interface. SQL Server is also more widely used, and therefore, it is easier to find development support.
Note: the costs of SQL Server do not effect the small company because the ISP spreads the cost over many users.
Feature | SQL Server 2000 | Oracle 10g | MySQL |
Independent Performance Benchmarks | 2nd Place | 1st Place | Does not participate – intended for small to medium sized systems |
Independent Analysis of Price/Performance Ratio | 1st Place – licensing is 25% the cost of Oracle | Unknown | Does not participate – commercial licenses are cheaper than SQL Server |
Cross Platform Compatible | No | Yes | Yes |
Fully Relational – affects data storage, retrieval and integrity | Yes | Yes | Somewhat – does not support foreign key constraints |
Language | Transact-SQL – considered easy to use and more powerful than MySQL Dialect | PL/SQL – considered more powerful than Transact-SQL but more difficult to use | MySQL Dialect – difficult to use with limited power |
Maintainability | Easy | Difficult | Difficult |
Open Source | No | No | Yes |
SQL Server References:
- http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/3087841
- http://www.tpc.org/tpcc/results/tpcc_perf_results.asp
- http://www.databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/2170201