> the ability to make 'hot backups' to SQL text files. pg_dump will produce consistent backup from working db server, mysqldump requires you to stop the server

> the ability to make 'hot backups' to SQL text files. pg_dump will produce consistent backup from working db server, mysqldump requires you to stop the server or to lock its tables etc. 'Hot backup' of mysql databases can be achieved through other methods/tools but at the cost of greater complexity. Run a slave, stop it, do mysqldump --single-transaction --master-data yourdbname off the slave to get a hot backup, and then restart the slave to get hot copies without shutting down writes. (I am going to assume that you round-robin your data into memcached from the read slaves if you are worried about a read lock on the master) Not saying that you shouldn't use Postgres, but if you have to work with MySQL, the technique above produces consistent hot backups from 4.0.18 onwards.