Why PostgreSQL is better than other commerial softwares?

Albert Chen wrote:

I tell my advisor to try PostgreSQL, but he said:
"Why PostgreSQL is better than other commercial softwares?
If you could give me ten reasons, and I will give it a try."

I'll give you one reason:

Equal access to the source code.

This allows you to better learn from it
and also allows you to help debug it. I've
been a professional Oracle programmer
for almost 6 years now. I'm moving to
PostgreSQL.... When I have a problem
with this database, I can pull out the
code and fix it, extend it, etc.

When I have a problem with Oracle,
I have to pay thousands in "support"
charges (you can't afford to go production
without being on a silver or gold support
plan...) for me to help them solve their
problem .. without the benifit of the
source code. *sigh* Then when we are done,
they implement the suggestions I gave them
and sell the improvements back to me!!
No more. I've had it.

You don't need 10 reasons. Independence
is the only reason any reasonable person
requires.

Good luck,

:) Clark

Hi,

I'm using FreeBSD and PostgreSQL 6.4. I tell my advisor
to try PostgreSQL, but he said:"Why PostgreSQL is better
than other commercial softwares? If you could give me
ten reasons, and I will give it a try."
Would anyone tell me what's reason you like Postgres.
Because it's free, powerful and have others, thanks.

I'll take a crack at it:

Object-relational
User-etensible
Interfaces to many languages
Nice client tools like psql and pgaccess
Full source code
Quick mailing list support
Learn internals of database engine
Frequent upgrades
Support for many platforms
Free

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, Albert Chen wrote:

Hi,

I'm using FreeBSD and PostgreSQL 6.4. I tell my advisor
to try PostgreSQL, but he said:"Why PostgreSQL is better
than other commercial softwares? If you could give me
ten reasons, and I will give it a try."
Would anyone tell me what's reason you like Postgres.
Because it's free, powerful and have others, thanks.

i wouldnt say one thing is 'better' than the other. it all comes down to
what you need done.

postgresql's pros:
* highly user extensible
* free source code ( a huge plus )
* easy to work with
* lots of opensource software supporting it

oracle's pros:
* established company. sql is what they do. period.
* supports damn near any SQL you can throw at it
* fairly quick, even on HUGE databases ( terabytes )

oracle has some nice tools available, as does postgres. the difference is
that postgres' tools are normally opensource/free whereas you pay,
sometimes pay big bucks, for oracle's.

---
Howie <caffeine@toodarkpark.org> URL: http://www.toodarkpark.org
"Oh my god, they killed init! YOU BASTARDS!"

"Albert Chen" <chen6178@hotmail.com> writes:

Hi,

I'm using FreeBSD and PostgreSQL 6.4. I tell my advisor
to try PostgreSQL, but he said:"Why PostgreSQL is better
than other commercial softwares? If you could give me
ten reasons, and I will give it a try."
Would anyone tell me what's reason you like Postgres.
Because it's free, powerful and have others, thanks.

-Albert.

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at [commercial deleted]

This reminds me of a recent offering on questions@freebsd.org:

"Albert Chen" writes:

Hi,

I'm currenlty using FreeBSD. My advisor prefers WinNT,
I telled him to try FreeBSD, but he asked me:
"Why FreeBSD is better than WinNT? give me ten reasons
and I will try it?" I don't know how to answer,
would anyone tell me, thanks.

As webmaster for PostgreSQL, I'll skip a few steps on the thread and
say that good answers will be added to the FAQ.

Where will Albert strike next? :-0

On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Quick mailing list support

except they cant tell me why a Dump/Restore from 6.3>6.4 wont work fore
some people. :)

/*Pardon my typing: Just switched to dvorak*/

On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Quick mailing list support

except they cant tell me why a Dump/Restore from 6.3>6.4 wont work fore
some people. :)

Often quick mailing list support?

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Gregory Maxwell wrote:

except they cant tell me why a Dump/Restore from 6.3>6.4 wont work fore
some people. :)

There were a lot of bugs in 6.3's pg_dump

If this is a real problem, I have a back-ported pg_dump.c for 6.3.2,
which can be used to dump out most of the data for the upgrade to 6.4.
Mail me if you want it.

--
Oliver Elphick Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
PGP key from public servers; key ID 32B8FAA1
========================================
"For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every
man that is among you: Do not think of yourself more
highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself
with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure
of faith God has given you." Romans 12:3

On Thu, 17 Dec 1998, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Quick mailing list support

except they cant tell me why a Dump/Restore from 6.3>6.4 wont work fore
some people. :)

Often quick mailing list support?

:-)

While on the subject I finally found the solution to a problem I (and one
or two other people) posted about without answer. (So sometimes it's slow
mailing list support).

In importing about 5 million records (which I copy in blocks of 10000) the
copy became linearly slower. After a friend RTFM and refered me, I used
the -F switch (passed by the postmaster to the backend processes) and the
time became linear and a LOT shorter. Import time for the 5000000 records
now the same (or maybe even slightly faster, I didn't accurately time
them) as importing the data into oracle on the same machine.

Anton

Anton de Wet wrote:

Often quick mailing list support?

:-)

While on the subject I finally found the solution to a problem I (and one
or two other people) posted about without answer. (So sometimes it's slow
mailing list support).

In importing about 5 million records (which I copy in blocks of 10000) the
copy became linearly slower. After a friend RTFM and refered me, I used
the -F switch (passed by the postmaster to the backend processes) and the
time became linear and a LOT shorter. Import time for the 5000000 records
now the same (or maybe even slightly faster, I didn't accurately time
them) as importing the data into oracle on the same machine.

"While on the subject..." -:)

This is the problem of buffer manager, known for very long time:
when copy eats all buffers, manager begins write/fsync each
durty buffer to free buffer for new data. All updated relations
should be fsynced _once_ @ transaction commit. You would get
the same results without -F...
I still have no time to implement this -:(

Vadim