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Can the authors somehow back the statement of MySQL's popularity vs. PostgreSQL? If anything, the latter seems more popular, judging from the frequency of its a

by nathell 13y ago

Can the authors somehow back the statement of MySQL's popularity vs. PostgreSQL? If anything, the latter seems more popular, judging from the frequency of its appearances on HN.

JoshGlazebrook 13y ago
On HN? Yes. Globally? No. Think about the tens of thousands of cheap, shared web hosting services that provide the same Apache+PHP+MySQL setup. Not many of them are providing Postgres as an option.
dvhh 13y ago
The popularity of something on HN vs popularity in general is not comparable, HN is only a small subset of the general developer population.
- nerfhammer 13y ago
  I bet most people on HN still use MySQL, they just don't talk about it as much
  - jbeja 13y ago
    I bet that most people that say they don't use MySQL, still use it.
  - wvenable 13y ago
    I still use MySQL but that's because when I started my last big project, Postgres was still iffy in places (replication, etc) and no where near as popular. I might still use MySQL for future projects because I still have to know it and I already have it in use. But if I instantly had no legacy to support and starting a new project, I wouldn't hesitate to use Postgres.
  - alien3d 13y ago
    i still use mysql.Maybe futured will db2c.
mgkimsal 13y ago
HN is a very loud bunch on some topics, but it's still a tiny number of people. Every wordpress instance out there is running on MySQL. Wordpress runs > 18% of public websites. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/07/27/wordpress-now-powers-18-9-of-the-web-has-over-46m-downloads-according-to-founder-matt-mullenweg/#!AB6IF http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/07/27/wordpress-now-power... and http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all Let's say their numbers are off by 2 - "only" 9% of public websites on wordpress. That's still a staggering number, and they're all running MySQL.
programminggeek 13y ago
PostgreSQL appears more popular on HN because MySQL isn't as sexy, feature laden, and a lot of Rails developers jumped away from MySQL due to some of its flaws. For all non HN users, MySQL is hugely popular, as is PHP. Both are cheap, widely available, and easy to setup on both Windows and Mac. MySQL is fantastic for probably 90% of what you'd ever think to use it for. MySQL is also a lot easier to find cheap hosting for and has tons of documentation spread throughout the internet. It's worked well for plenty of websites at ridiculously massive scale for a long time and by the time you ever get "to scale", your problems will almost always be with your code, structure, a poorly designed query, or a severe lack of caching long before you run into problems with MySQL. PHP and MySQL aren't the sexy HN choice, and there are problems with both, but both will get you a very long ways before they are ever your main problem as a startup.
- teacup50 13y ago
  > PHP and MySQL aren't the sexy HN choice, and there are problems with both, but both will get you a very long ways before they are ever your main problem as a startup. This is only true if you don't have your technological sights set particularly high. We could not implement some of the things we do, reliably, with PHP and MySQL. We'd spend more time battling the tools than we would working on our actual product.
- talideon 13y ago
  PostgreSQL is one of the last things I'd describe as sexy in any way, shape, or form. It's utterly, uncompromisingly utilitarian.
  - srd 13y ago
    Which does make it sexy for those of us who prefer quality to glossy hype.
    - twic 13y ago
      It's Colin Firth rather than Hugh Grant.
  - 13y ago
copergi 13y ago
Postgresql seems more popular from reading blogs, news sites, etc because it is moving up in popularity while mysql is moving down. So there is more talk about it, even though there is still less usage. All the people switching to postgresql from mysql and talking about how much better it is, all the people hearing that and asking about it, etc. Mysql is still more popular, notice how lots of the typical PHP turdware doesn't even support postgresql for example.
damon_c 13y ago
Wordpress doesn't work with Postgres out of the box, so that's a big chunk of the internet right there that is using MySQL.

by nathell 13y ago

Can the authors somehow back the statement of MySQL's popularity vs. PostgreSQL? If anything, the latter seems more popular, judging from the frequency of its appearances on HN.

JoshGlazebrook 13y ago

On HN? Yes. Globally? No. Think about the tens of thousands of cheap, shared web hosting services that provide the same Apache+PHP+MySQL setup. Not many of them are providing Postgres as an option.

dvhh 13y ago

The popularity of something on HN vs popularity in general is not comparable, HN is only a small subset of the general developer population.

nerfhammer 13y ago
I bet most people on HN still use MySQL, they just don't talk about it as much
- jbeja 13y ago
  I bet that most people that say they don't use MySQL, still use it.
- wvenable 13y ago
  I still use MySQL but that's because when I started my last big project, Postgres was still iffy in places (replication, etc) and no where near as popular. I might still use MySQL for future projects because I still have to know it and I already have it in use. But if I instantly had no legacy to support and starting a new project, I wouldn't hesitate to use Postgres.
- alien3d 13y ago
  i still use mysql.Maybe futured will db2c.

mgkimsal 13y ago

HN is a very loud bunch on some topics, but it's still a tiny number of people. Every wordpress instance out there is running on MySQL. Wordpress runs > 18% of public websites. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/07/27/wordpress-now-powers-18-9-of-the-web-has-over-46m-downloads-according-to-founder-matt-mullenweg/#!AB6IF http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/07/27/wordpress-now-power... and http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all Let's say their numbers are off by 2 - "only" 9% of public websites on wordpress. That's still a staggering number, and they're all running MySQL.

programminggeek 13y ago

PostgreSQL appears more popular on HN because MySQL isn't as sexy, feature laden, and a lot of Rails developers jumped away from MySQL due to some of its flaws. For all non HN users, MySQL is hugely popular, as is PHP. Both are cheap, widely available, and easy to setup on both Windows and Mac. MySQL is fantastic for probably 90% of what you'd ever think to use it for. MySQL is also a lot easier to find cheap hosting for and has tons of documentation spread throughout the internet. It's worked well for plenty of websites at ridiculously massive scale for a long time and by the time you ever get "to scale", your problems will almost always be with your code, structure, a poorly designed query, or a severe lack of caching long before you run into problems with MySQL. PHP and MySQL aren't the sexy HN choice, and there are problems with both, but both will get you a very long ways before they are ever your main problem as a startup.

teacup50 13y ago
> PHP and MySQL aren't the sexy HN choice, and there are problems with both, but both will get you a very long ways before they are ever your main problem as a startup. This is only true if you don't have your technological sights set particularly high. We could not implement some of the things we do, reliably, with PHP and MySQL. We'd spend more time battling the tools than we would working on our actual product.
talideon 13y ago
PostgreSQL is one of the last things I'd describe as sexy in any way, shape, or form. It's utterly, uncompromisingly utilitarian.
- srd 13y ago
  Which does make it sexy for those of us who prefer quality to glossy hype.
  - twic 13y ago
    It's Colin Firth rather than Hugh Grant.
- 13y ago

copergi 13y ago

Postgresql seems more popular from reading blogs, news sites, etc because it is moving up in popularity while mysql is moving down. So there is more talk about it, even though there is still less usage. All the people switching to postgresql from mysql and talking about how much better it is, all the people hearing that and asking about it, etc. Mysql is still more popular, notice how lots of the typical PHP turdware doesn't even support postgresql for example.

damon_c 13y ago

Wordpress doesn't work with Postgres out of the box, so that's a big chunk of the internet right there that is using MySQL.