Having dealt with PostgreSQL, MySQL, MSSQL, DB/2, Sybase, and Oracle - I say level of effort. Yes, Oracle can often be considered a performance leader (but the

Having dealt with PostgreSQL, MySQL, MSSQL, DB/2, Sybase, and Oracle - I say level of effort. Yes, Oracle can often be considered a performance leader (but the margin is debatable), but of that list I have always found it more difficult to deal with. Just the installation process alone on Linux with Oracle was more time consuming than DB/2, where I just wanted it to simply run. Now I am not a qualified DBA on Oracle or DB/2, but having spent a _lot_ of time with various RDBMS platforms, I don't have the patience to expend too much effort on a simple, vanilla install with the defaults. Compared to PostgreSQL, MSSQL, and MySQL - which I have installed, configured, and admin'd numerous times, I might surmise that in a startup its important to get down to business, in this case the business of dealing with the data. If I have to muck about just getting my DB platforms to run, I am wasting time. So in a "time is money" context, Oracle loses - unless you have Oracle specialists on staff, which may be uncommon in startups.