Posted by NC on 09/26/05 19:39

smorrey@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I've been thinking on this long and hard, and I can't seem to come up
> with an answer on it.
>
> Why is it almost always assumed the MySQL will be the server for nearly
> any PHP app?
>
> Why is it MySQL and not PostGRES or SQLite?

1. Because more hosting providers have MySQL than either PostgreSQL
or SQLite.
2. Because MySQL is much more Windows-friendly. MySQL has a native
Windows server, while PostgreSQL server only runs on Windows with
Cygwin. PostgreSQL client runs on Windows natively, but you have
to compile it from source code.
3. Because PostgreSQL is more cumbersome to upgrade. In particular,
PostgreSQL data formats are incompatible between versions, so any
upgrade necessarily involves dumping data before the upgrade and
restoring it from dump files afterwards.

> Is there some winning advantage that MySQL has over PostGRES that
> makes it the de-facto standard in the PHP world?

Other than product promotion by MySQL AB, you mean? I think so.
MySQL meets the needs of the cross-platform developer. With MySQL,
you can develop on Windows and deploy on Unix. With PostgreSQL,
you can (theoretically) develop on Windows, but you need Cygwin
and a C compiler before you begin.

Cheers,
NC

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