I am starting up a software business that will rely heavily on a
database.  I intend to use an Open Source database (OSDB), and I would
like a comparison of as many OSDBs as possible.  To be satisfactory,
an answer must address  each of these databases:
       - MySQL
       - PostgreSQL
       - mSQL
and must provide
    - a feature list
    - links to documentation
    - what operating systems they run on
    - what management tools ship with the OSDB

A five star answer, for which I will tip $30, would also address the
following:
    - Any other Open Source databases you can find
    - Notable projects/companies where each DB is used
    - Provide a chart showing which database supports the following:
          - transactions
          - stored procedures (if available, please specify which
language(s) are supported for the SPs)
          - XML import/export
          - built-in Unicode support
          - built-in encryption (if available, please specify
supported algorithms)
          - easy integration with Apache 2.x and/or mod_perl
      - links to any "industry buzz" articles that would give me a
feeling for how reliable the DB is, how responsive its developers are,
etc.
      - any other information that could be useful in deciding which
of these OSDBs is most "enterprise ready."

Items that are marked "if available" would be much appreciated, but
will not be considered necessary in order to qualify for a tip.

Many thanks in advance!

--Whe

Hi, that's quite a list of things. 

I've used most of the open source databases at one time or another,
I'm certified with DB2 and Informix both as a programmer and a
sysadmin. Neither of those are OpenSource, but I wanted you to know
something about who is giving you the answer here. I'll also tell you
up front here that MySQL is probably the best one out there, just so
that you know my baias, and now I'll try to set that aside and give
you the best report I can.

I can tell you aren't use to using OpenSource packages by your
questions, for instance your point "- what management tools ship with
the OSDB " OpenSource systems generally stick to doing one thing very
well. They build up a following and Packages are added to the system
to work with the system, but these add-ons are looked after a seperate
group who does that  one thing very well. I will show you these, and
find the better ones to use with the databases or at least the most
popular.



Postrest

    - a feature list 
    - links to documentation 
    - what operating systems they run on 
    - what management tools ship with the OSDB 
Homepage: http://www.postgresql.org
Features/Docs http://www2.ch.postgresql.org/features.html
Prominent examples http://www.geocrawler.com
http://advocacy.postgresql.org/casestudies/

PostgreSQL is available for almost every brand of Unix (34 platforms
with the latest stable release), and native Windows compatibility will
be introduced with PostgreSQL 7.4.

GUI database design and administration tools
Several GUI tools exist to both administer the database (pgAdmin,
pgAccess) and do database design (Tora, Data Architect).
http://pgadmin.postgresql.org/pgadmin2.php?ContentID=1
http://www.pgaccess.org/
http://www.globecom.se/tora/
http://www.thekompany.com/products/dataarchitect/

System Information and Documentation
http://www.postgresql.org/idocs/
http://www.us.postgresql.org/users-lounge/index.html


A point list for some technical features that PostgreSQL offers: 
Fully ACID compliant 
ANSI SQL compliant 
Referential Integrity 
Replication (non-commercial and commercial solutions) allowing the
duplication of the master database to multiple slave machines
Native interfaces for ODBC, JDBC, C, C++, PHP, Perl, TCL, ECPG,
Python, and Ruby
Rules 
Views 
Triggers 
Unicode 
Sequences 
Inheritance 
Outer Joins 
Sub-selects 
An open API 
Stored Procedures 
Native SSL support 
Procedural languages 
Hot stand-by (commercial solutions) 
Better than row-level locking 
Functional and Partial indexes 
Native Kerberos authentication 
Support for UNION, UNION ALL and EXCEPT queries 
Loadable extensions offering SHA1, MD5, XML, and other functionality 
Tools for generating portable SQL to share with other SQL-compliant
systems
Extensible data type system providing for custom, user-defined
datatypes and rapid development of new datatypes
Cross-database compatibility functions for easing the transition from
other, less SQL-compliant RDBMS

Transactions
http://www.postgresql.org/idocs/index.php?tutorial-transactions.html

language(s) are supported for the SPs) 
          - XML import/export 
Add on 
          - built-in Unicode support 
          - built-in encryption (if available, please specify 
Kerbos
supported algorithms) 
          - easy integration with Apache 2.x and/or mod_perl 
Yes
      - links to any "industry buzz" articles that would give me a 
feeling for how reliable the DB is, how responsive its developers are,
etc. 
      - any other information that could be useful in deciding which 
of these OSDBs is most "enterprise ready." 

PostgreSQL Advocacy Group
http://advocacy.postgresql.org/


MySQL

    - a feature list 
http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Features.html
http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Nutshell_Other_features.html

    - links to documentation 
http://www.mysql.com/products/myodbc/manual.html

    - what operating systems they run on 
http://www.mysql.com/downloads/index.html

    - what management tools ship with the OSDB 
PHPMyAdmin - http://www.phpmyadmin.net/ (The one I use most often)
 http://www.mysql.com/downloads/index.html

Homepage http://www.mysql.com
Features/Docs http://www.mysql.com/doc/index.html

    - Notable projects/companies where each DB is used 
Prominent examples 
http://www.sourceforge.net 
http://www.slashdot.org
http://www.mp3.com 
http://finance.yahoo.com/?u

 
MySQL Powers Yahoo Finance 
http://www.mysql.com/articles/us/yahoo_finance.html 
 
U.S. Census Bureau Reaps Awards from MySQL-based Web Sites 
http://www.mysql.com/articles/us/us_census.html 
 
MySQL Matters to Slashdot 
http://www.mysql.com/articles/us/slashdot.html 

    - Provide a chart showing which database supports the following: 
          - transactions 
http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/ANSI_diff_Transactions.html
          - stored procedures (if available, please specify which 
language(s) are supported for the SPs) 
          - XML import/export 
http://www.mysql.com/portal/software/item-229.html
New version will export all queries in XML format by using the -X
switch

          - built-in Unicode support 

SQLBindParameter binds a buffer to a parameter marker in an SQL
statement. SQLBindParameter supports binding to a Unicode C data type,
even if the underlying driver does not support Unicode data.


          - built-in encryption (if available, please specify 
supported algorithms) 
http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Security.html
MD5 is in there as well. 

          - easy integration with Apache 2.x and/or mod_perl 
Yes
      - links to any "industry buzz" articles that would give me a 
feeling for how reliable the DB is, how responsive its developers are,
etc. 
See bottom link area

      - any other information that could be useful in deciding which 
of these OSDBs is most "enterprise ready." 

http://www.mysql.com/articles/index.html

Benchmark pages
http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/MySQL_Benchmarks.html

http://www.mysql.com/information/benchmarks.html



mSQL (mini SQL)
 
homepage : http://www.hughes.com.au/

http://www.hughes.com.au/extras/

    - a feature list 
http://www.hughes.com.au/library/msql/msql30_info.html

    - links to documentation 
http://www.hughes.com.au/library/msql/

    - what operating systems they run on 
Win2k Linux Solaris Unix (Windows Port is UnOfficial)

    - what management tools ship with the OSDB 
http://www.hughes.com.au/library/msql/
 

    - Notable projects/companies where each DB is used 
Real Networks, the makers of RealAudio and RealVideo, license Mini SQL
as an integral technology for their new server products.
http://www.real.com/?pv=1


    - Provide a chart showing which database supports the following: 
          - transactions 
No
          - stored procedures (if available, please specify which 
language(s) are supported for the SPs) 


          - XML import/export 
No
          - built-in Unicode support 
No
          - built-in encryption (if available, please specify 
supported algorithms) 

          - easy integration with Apache 2.x and/or mod_perl 
Yes
      - links to any "industry buzz" articles that would give me a 
feeling for how reliable the DB is, how responsive its developers are,
etc. 
Not much said about this database these days. It was neck and neck
with MySQL for serveral years, in fact the O'reilly book that frist
did OpenSource databases was mSQL & MySQL, and most of the features
and methods were the same. This has change drastically in the last few
versions. Mysql has added several features, where mSQL has basically
remained the same.

      - any other information that could be useful in deciding which 
of these OSDBs is most "enterprise ready." 

mSQL is not an enterprise database. It's name says it all really "mini
SQL". It's design and market area is for websites. It has a very small
footprint and a very fast connection speed. It was designed to be the
back-engine of a dynamic website. In doing this it is probably the
best out there for that. It is definitly not free anymore, and they
have changed their licence which is why it is not packaged directly
with Redhat and other Linux's. This was changed a few years ago, which
maybe why it has lost much of the following it once had. I personally
haven't used it for the last couple of years.


SAP DB
homepage : http://www.sapdb.org/index.html

    - a feature list 
http://www.sapdb.org/sap_db_features.htm

    - links to documentation 
http://www.sapdb.org/sap_db_documentation.htm

    - what operating systems they run on 
http://www.sapdb.org/sap_db_software.htm

    - what management tools ship with the OSDB 
http://www.sapdb.org/sap_db_tools.htm

    - Notable projects/companies where each DB is used 
http://www.sapdb.org/sap_db_links.htm

    - Provide a chart showing which database supports the following: 
          - transactions 
http://www.sapdb.org/htmhelp/5e/eba664440a11d3a98200a0c9449261/content.htm

          - stored procedures (if available, please specify which 
language(s) are supported for the SPs) 
://www.google.com/custom?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=active&cof=L%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.sapdb.org%2Fimages%2Flogos%2Fsapdb200x50.gif%3BLH%3A50%3BLW%3A200%3BAH%3Acenter%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.sapdb.org%3B&domains=sapdb.org&q=stored+procedures&btnG=Google+Search&sitesearch=sapdb.org

          - XML import/export 
Not really I don't think. I can't find any hard fast examples of this.
If you use the main sites search you will pull up a few documents that
seem to suggest that it does, but I didn't find any that were enough
to say "yes" with

          - built-in Unicode support 
SAP DB as a UNICODE Database: SAP DB from 7.3 upwards
http://www.sapdb.org/pdf/loaderspot_eng.pdf

          - built-in encryption (if available, please specify 
supported algorithms) 
://www.google.com/custom?num=100&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=active&cof=L%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.sapdb.org%2Fimages%2Flogos%2Fsapdb200x50.gif%3BLH%3A50%3BLW%3A200%3BAH%3Acenter%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.sapdb.org%3B&domains=sapdb.org&q=encryption&sitesearch=sapdb.org

Language Support 

ODBC, C/C++ Precompiler (Embedded SQL), JDBC, Perl DBI, Python, PHP



          - easy integration with Apache 2.x and/or mod_perl 

http://www.sapdb.org/htmhelp/e7/b8e0c60eea11d5a9f600a0c9449261/content.htm

http://www.sapdb.org/htmhelp/e7/b8e0c90eea11d5a9f600a0c9449261/content.htm

      - links to any "industry buzz" articles that would give me a 
feeling for how reliable the DB is, how responsive its developers are,
etc. 
Developing SAP DB 
http://home.snafu.de/~dittmar/sapdbdev/

SAP DB: The Other Open-Source Database  
 August 5, 2002
http://www.networkcomputing.com/1316/1316buzz1.html

Have you looked at SAP -- Forums
http://www.javalobby.com/thread.jsp?forum=91&thread=3500

Product and Tool Alternatives
http://www.systemanage.com/cff/considering_products.cfm




Links

The Open Source Database Benchmark
http://osdb.sourceforge.net/

Tools for the Open-Source Database
http://www.computerworld.com/databasetopics/data/story/0,10801,63561,00.html

MySQL adding transaction support to open-source database 
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/09/20/020920hnmysql.xml

Open Source XML Database
http://exist.sourceforge.net/

OpenSourceDatabases - As the Tables Turn (Tim Perdue)
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20001112.php3

Huge linklist and further resources
http://www.skippingdot.net/2002/01/30

Sourceforge's opensource database foundry
http://foundries.sourceforge.net/databases/

Why not MySQL?
http://openacs.org/philosophy/why-not-mysql.html


MySQL and PostgreSQL compared
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20000705.php3?page=1

Thanks, 

webadept-ga

Hi Webadept,

Actually, I am familiar with the "do one thing well" philosophy, but
you're right, I misspoke--I should have said "what tools are available
for" instead of "what tools ship with" the OSDB.

In any case, your answer was very thorough, and I appreciate the time
you put in.  You did not provide the chart that I requested (chart ==
table; you denormalized this into a set of "yes" or "no"s in the
section for each DB).  You also did not post answers to every point
for each database (e.g., you never clearly answered the question about
which of these databases support stored procedures, much less what
languages the SPs could be written in).  Despite that, you gave me a
very thorough answer with plenty of pointers so that I can find more
information on my own.  Thank you very much.

Please find my tip enclosed, and, once more, thank you for your
assistance.

--Whe