DBMS > MySQL vs. PostgreSQL

System Properties Comparison MySQL vs. PostgreSQL

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Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

Widely used open source RDBMS

Developed as objectoriented DBMS (Postgres), gradually enhanced with 'standards' like SQL

Primary database model

Relational DBMS

Key/Value like access via memcached API

Relational DBMS

with object oriented extensions, e.g.: user defined types/functions and inheritance. Handling of key/value pairs with hstore module.

Secondary database models

Document store

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Score	1243.37
Rank	#2	Overall
	#2	Relational DBMS

Score	550.96
Rank	#4	Overall
	#4	Relational DBMS

Website

www.mysql.com

www.postgresql.org

Technical documentation

dev.mysql.com/doc

www.postgresql.org/docs

Developer

Oracle

since 2010, originally MySQL AB, then Sun

PostgreSQL Global Development Group

www.postgresql.org/developer

Initial release

1995

1989

1989: Postgres, 1996: PostgreSQL

Current release

8.0.23 , January 2021

13.2 , February 2021

License

Commercial or Open Source

Open Source

GPL version 2. Commercial licenses with extended functionallity are available

Open Source

BSD

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

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Implementation language

C and C++

Server operating systems

FreeBSD
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows

FreeBSD
HP-UX
Linux
NetBSD
OpenBSD
OS X
Solaris
Unix
Windows

Data scheme

yes

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

specific XML-type available, but no XML query functionality.

Secondary indexes

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with proprietary extensions

yes

standard with numerous extensions

APIs and other access methods

ADO.NET
JDBC
ODBC
Proprietary native API

ADO.NET
JDBC
native C library
ODBC
streaming API for large objects

Supported programming languages

Ada
C
C#
C++
D
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Haskell
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
Objective-C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Scheme
Tcl

.Net
C
C++
Delphi
Java

JDBC
JavaScript (Node.js)
Perl
PHP
Python
Tcl

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

yes

proprietary syntax

user defined functions

realized in proprietary language PL/pgSQL or with common languages like Perl, Python, Tcl etc.

Triggers

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

horizontal partitioning, sharding with MySQL Cluster or MySQL Fabric

partitioning by range, list and (since PostgreSQL 11) by hash

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

Source-replica replication

other methods possible by using 3rd party extensions

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

not for MyISAM storage engine

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

not for MyISAM storage engine

ACID

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

table locks or row locks depending on storage engine

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

User concepts

Access control

Users with fine-grained authorization concept

no user groups or roles

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

More information provided by the system vendor

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Related products and services

3rd parties

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Datadog: Improve MySQL performance by visualizing and identifying errors fast using granular, out-of-the-box dashboards.
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Navicat for MySQL is the ideal solution for MySQL/MariaDB administration and development.
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ClusterControl: the only management system you’ll ever need to take control of your open source database infrastructure.
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General SQL Parser: Instantly adding parsing, decoding, analysis and rewrite SQL processing capability to your products.
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ClusterControl: the only management system you’ll ever need to take control of your open source database infrastructure.
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Navicat for PostgreSQL is an easy-to-use graphical tool for PostgreSQL database development.
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pgDash: In-Depth PostgreSQL Monitoring.
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General SQL Parser: Instantly adding parsing, decoding, analysis and rewrite SQL processing capability to your products.
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CYBERTEC is your professional partner for PostgreSQL services and Data Science since 2000. With offices in Austria, Uruguay, Estonia, Poland, South Africa and Switzerland, CYBERTEC operates worldwide and is here for you 24/7!
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EDB: Helping organizations get the most from PostgreSQL, Oracle Migration, High Availability, Security
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We invite representatives of vendors of related products to contact us for presenting information about their offerings here.

More resources

DB-Engines blog posts

MySQL is the DBMS of the Year 2019
3 January 2020, Matthias Gelbmann, Paul Andlinger

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PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2020
4 January 2021, Paul Andlinger, Matthias Gelbmann

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PostgreSQL is the DBMS of the Year 2017
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Recent citations in the news

Global NoSQL Market 2020 Industry Segmentation: Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle Database – KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper
24 February 2021, KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper

Global Relational Databases Software Market 2025: Microsoft, MySQL, Oracle, SAP, PostgreSQL, Amazon RDS, IBM, MariaDB, Informix, Teradata, SQLite – The Bisouv Network
23 February 2021, The Bisouv Network

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25 February 2021, The Bisouv Network

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23 February 2021, NY Market Reports

Senior Software Engineer - Team Lead – tech.mn
24 February 2021, TECHdotMN

provided by Google News

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Global NoSQL Market 2020 Industry Segmentation: Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle Database – KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper
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