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Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

postgresql.org

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Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#41

Post by ken »

justinvh wrote: post #18
craigkerstiens wrote: post #4

I'm a big fan of Postgres, and it's got plenty going for it. That's not to say Oracle isn't a good database in its own right. The knocks against Oracle tend to be lock-in, complexity, price, but rather than go in a checklist comparison I'd rather say what's unique about Postgres: - Based on its license it's very hard for any one company or individual to "own" Postgres, this makes risk of a company as a bad actor bein…

> Its geospatial capabilities put it as the most advanced geospatial database, only ESRI software really stands to beat it here Where does PostGIS stand in comparison?

The original comment was about how few packages and how little space Postgres takes. PostGIS is good but it pulls in a lot of extra packages.

I hate Oracle as much as anyone but this is no longer a fair comparison. If you’re bragging about how good PostGIS is, you’re no longer anywhere near a 66MB install. More like (IIRC) 5 to 10 times that.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#43

Post by Someone1234 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #15

That's not a very useful comparison. Databases are made to execute queries, not to install them. The only useful metric is performance and features (and price, of course). Sure, Oracle is bloated and pain to manage, but if it works faster, provides unique features and costs less in the end, people will use it.

Right but by that metric Oracle is archaic.

Just look at Postgres[0] supported column data types and then look at Oracle[1]. Better data types means more tightly defined columns, which means fewer bugs/less defensive programming/reduced maintenance/reduced code complexity.

No doubt someone will be along shortly to tell me "you don't NEED it!" and then tell me how to hack constraints into making it act like something it is not, but I don't care. I have no interest in "forcing" Oracle to act like a modern database through repeatedly having to re-define 30+ year old common data types (e.g. Int32, Int64, Long, Bool, etc).

As a developer I /hate/ working with Oracle. It is just cludgy. I don't care how many times people point to vague indefinables for why it is "superior," it sucks to work with. Microsoft Sql Server is better, and Postgres/Sqlite are superb.

Just the fact Postgres has a date (with no-time) column means it outright wins. In Oracle, we stored them as 12:00 but that's a gotcha since it can get timezone adjusted in the pipeline (e.g. 12:00 becomes 08:00) and the result be subtly broken. Cannot time-zone adjust a real date type.

[0] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.5/datatype.html

[1] https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/server.111/b28318/datat...

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#45

Post by jojobas »

phoe-krk wrote: post #3

Copying from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12115397/is-it-against-l... : The standard license ( http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/standard-license-... ) you agree to when you download software from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) does state that you're not allowed to disclose benchmarks. You may not: > - disclose results of any program benchmark tests without our prior consent. I sadly suspect that…

Chances are, he lives in a country where essentially saying "by purchasing our product you agree not to tell anyone how bad it is" is unenforceable. That might even include US.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#46

Post by jdm2212 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #42

For those still on Oracle, why? Is it regulations or executives demanding certified solutions? And if so then with so many bugs at what point does certification become a negative signal?

Query hints are one reason. I'm not a fan of Oracle as a company, but for certain usage patterns you need query hints and Postgres doesn't support them.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#47

Post by zozbot234 »

kumarvvr wrote: post #26

With the amount of hype and mind share micro-services attract, I hope the era of large database clusters like Oracle comes to an end. At the system level, even Oracle has to do some sort of message passing stuff to be able to distributed databases. With the availability of streaming services, resilient distributed computation and data storage architectures, I hope companies like Oracle die a slow, but graceful death.…

There will always be a lot of use for large databases. PostgreSQL does provide some under-the-hood features for doing distributed db's (such as the PREPARE TRANSACTION extension) but the actual implementation work is left to the user - there's no such thing as a "one size fits all" solution in this domain.

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#48

Post by kumarvvr »

zozbot234 wrote: post #47
kumarvvr wrote: post #26

With the amount of hype and mind share micro-services attract, I hope the era of large database clusters like Oracle comes to an end. At the system level, even Oracle has to do some sort of message passing stuff to be able to distributed databases. With the availability of streaming services, resilient distributed computation and data storage architectures, I hope companies like Oracle die a slow, but graceful death.…

There will always be a lot of use for large databases. PostgreSQL does provide some under-the-hood features for doing distributed db's (such as the PREPARE TRANSACTION extension) but the actual implementation work is left to the user - there's no such thing as a "one size fits all" solution in this domain.

Exactly, so, what use cases is Oracle best suited for, situations where Postgres cannot be a good fit?

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#49

Post by amenod »

dwheeler wrote: post #35
parhamn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the damage claims for something like this, if any? Surely neither side would want to litigate this.

Oracle may very well want to litigate it. I doubt they care about the optics. This is the well-known DeWitt clause, so named because Oracle crafted it to squelch database research being performed by Dr. David DeWitt. I believe these clauses should be clearly ruled as illegal, but to my knowledge they still persist. Details here: https://dwheeler.com/essays/dewitt-clause.html

If they decide to litigate, they might learn what a Streisand effect[0] is.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Re: Oracle vs. PostgreSQL – A Comment

#50

Post by phoe-krk »

jojobas wrote: post #45
phoe-krk wrote: post #3

Copying from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12115397/is-it-against-l... : The standard license ( http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/licenses/standard-license-... ) you agree to when you download software from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) does state that you're not allowed to disclose benchmarks. You may not: > - disclose results of any program benchmark tests without our prior consent. I sadly suspect that…

Chances are, he lives in a country where essentially saying "by purchasing our product you agree not to tell anyone how bad it is" is unenforceable. That might even include US.

The fact that something is unenforceable is a poor way of stopping rich lawyer-based companies, such as Oracle, from attempting to enforce it nonetheless.
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