MySQL Reviews

We sell MySQL to customers who need to build second tier applications, not their core application. For some of our customers, when they are planning to build their second tier application, they will choose MySQL rather than Oracle which is more expensive.

The one interesting thing about this product is that it is open source. It comes from an open source product. MySQL has been positioned as open source, but it also provides support. Therefore, for a senior level product like MySQL it is different than a product like MariaDB or MongoDB which are also open source databases but they depend on the community for support. 

People just assume it is less expensive. The product is not expensive. But they also have a strong principle behind data backup and supporting that product. That's why it's quite interesting, because it's open source but it has a principle behind it.

In terms of what could be improved, some of the features that Oracle has, MySQL also has. Like if a customer is looking for a high availability solution, a security solution, a monetary solution, they can have all that in an expensive product like Oracle but they can also have it when they're using MySQL.

Every product has their own pros and cons, and also has their own market. So if the customer is already using or has already used Oracle for a long time they will know the look and feel and the character of this database that can fit into their business.

They will not choose MySQL over Oracle if they already know about Oracle. But if they start to build a new application before they are creating a secondary application then they may not be familiar with Oracle and they will try MySQL. Maybe they will like it because they will see that this database also has complete features. If they try Oracle they find the same features but different pricing. In certain things, MySQL cannot have the same benefits as Oracle but for some customers who are already using Oracle, you're not going to move to another product even if it's more expensive.

And MySQL is a cheaper product.

That's why I say that MySQL has many of the same features as Oracle. Both of them have high security.

The customer that comes from a small or medium business will prefer to choose MySQL rather than the Oracle database because they already know that this product is best for their business because it is not expensive compared to Oracle. 

Oracle does have different versions with different prices. The cheaper is called the Standard Edition. And the most expensive is the Enterprise Edition.

MySQL is comparable to the Oracle Standard Edition if we compare peer to peer. But the difference is that the Standard Edition doesn't have features like the Enterprise edition. But the high security and the high probability are not in the Standard Edition. But MySQL will have it. It will have all those kinds of features with a lower price. Because the Standard Edition is more expensive than MySQL.

Every kind of enterprise company has a core application on which their business depends. Mostly they will just choose the Oracle database. Why? Because of Oracle database's capability to handle the big workload for enterprise businesses. I think that will become their priority and MySQL will not be an option for them.

But someday I would like to see the enterprise companies changing their mindset. If you are talking about core applications related to the high workload in the future, they can choose MySQL as well. Maybe not now, because right now they still see MySQL as for small/medium business and not for the enterprise business. But I hope in the future MySQL can be seen as on the same level for their database.

That will mean that all enterprise companies can have two options when they are choosing a database solution for their core application; either Oracle database or MySQL.

I'm a reseller of MySQL. I've been selling this product for one or two years.

In terms of stability I think MySQL is categorized as a stable product. We have customers who are using MySQL as its database as an online application and it's like an online store. So it means that the work is quite heavy but we are using MySQL for it. 

In terms of scalability, because the application is online, MySQL grows when their business grows and expands with the system. They may need to add more servers, but when they add more servers it means MySQL also expands.

MySQL has that kind of capability - when the servers grow they have some kind of clustering method or clustering concept, which makes it scalable onto several servers. So it will follow the growth of the servers to cover the business.

I have been handling Oracle products for more than 10 years so I know about their kind of technical support characteristics.

For MySQL, when the customer has a problem they get their support from the Oracle portal. That means, the manual of support is online and the customer needs to register on the portal and if they have some issue or some problem using the product they need to create a ticket, and escalate or submit the ticket to the portal. Later on, they will get support from Oracle support which is worldwide.

They have their own SLA for giving support because they apply a severity level depending on how you categorize the error.

The highest severity is severity one. I think there are three or four levels. When the problem is not income to the business, you can categorize as a level three, it's a normal error. But if the error or the condition is impacting the business you can assume that is a severe one. So if you create a ticket and mark it as severe one then Oracle will directly contact Oracle support. They will contact you to help you to solve the problem within five minutes.

The initial setup is categorized as a simple and user-friendly installation. It is not complex.

I have experience installing Oracle, and if you just do the default install without too many customization, you can finish it in about one or two hours. For MySQL I think it is one hour to complete the installation.

In terms of license cost, I think the one that we are selling for MySQL is not a perpetual license like we are selling for the Oracle database.

The Oracle database license we are selling is on a perpetual basis. MySQL has that too, but for MySQL we are selling only the support.

That means that the subscription we are selling for one year consists of software support for MySQL.

That's the difference between Oracle and MySQL.

My message to our customers out there is that you want to get a good product. A good product in terms of the cost and an effective solution. But you also need some guarantee that this product will be supported by the principle.

Because there are so many cheaper products out there but they don't have principles to support the product. They rely on the community for the troubleshooting.

So I recommend to the customers to try this product. MySQL comes from open-source so it means it's a cost-effective solution. But the important thing is this product has its own principle that is supporting this product. It means you don't have to worry as long as you have a bit of a principle behind you to cover and support you. So you can use this product with less worry because you have a principle behind you. That is my message to the customers.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give MySQL an eight.

My primary use case for MySQL is with my products or websites for clients, and it helps me maintain relations with the best.

The relations in the database, the dynamic workflow, and the ability to connect with all columns. It's useful for e-commerce.

There is room for improvement in terms of the stability of the solution. 

I have been using MySQL for three years. 

I would rate the stability a seven out of ten. It does break down a little at times. 

I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. 

The initial setup depends. For example, when working with e-commerce sites, it can be difficult to connect, and there may be failures. However, for other sites, it's easy.

Our organization is using MySQL by having it hosted through a hosting provider.

It is free. It is an open-source platform. 

Overall, I would rate MySQL a six out of ten. I recommend MySQL for small organizations and companies. For bigger organizations, one may need to consider other options.

You can also consider your project, budget, and organization while opting for MySQL. If it's a government or private project and what the product is. 

The solution is a database server. You can use it for desktop or web applications. The tool is used mostly for web applications. Most websites have MySQL databases behind them.

MySQL is an open-source product and has good community support. If you encounter any problem, you can easily ask other members of the community to help. They help you a lot. On top of being free, MySQL is a cross-platform database, meaning it can work on both Windows and Linux. It is very good for us.

The solution’s stored procedure is too light. MS SQL server supports stored procedures which MySQL doesn’t. Oracle and MS SQL servers support treiber which notifies you about data changes in the database. MySQL doesn’t support treiber.

I would like to see the automatic backup feature in the solution as well. Data is very important and we need to preserve it in a safe place. It would be good if MySQL can back up the data automatically.

I have been using MySQL for ten years. I use the solution’s latest version.

I haven’t seen any problems with the solution’s stability and I would rate the stability a ten on ten. It is a very stable tool.

I would rate the solution’s scalability a ten on ten. The tool is network-based and the scalability depends on the design of your project. You can use the product of both large and small-scale projects.

We are not a very large organization. There are around ten developers who use MS SQL server and MySQL for databases.

We are simultaneously using the MS SQL server and MySQL server. We first used MS SQL server and then in some projects, we required free and open-source databases. We use MySQL for those projects.

The installation was very easy and straightforward. The setup took around a couple of minutes which was five to six minutes to complete. The tool’s installation was really fast.

We didn’t require any assistance from third parties.

My company must have seen some benefit with the solution’s use.

I would rate the overall solution a nine out of ten. We didn’t find any issues in the solution’s maintenance. In every project, one developer would be in charge of their respective database maintenance. The solution has large community support.

MySQL is a fast database that is also high performing. When you want to do a project that requires a fast transaction, MySQL acts very well there. When a company needs a free database that is fast, could be connected over the network with many people, and do transactions, we usually suggest this solution.

I used it for a small customer database company in England with 20 employees. They didn't have that much data, and we needed something easy to install and easy to run. This was my use case for it.

My main reason for using MySQL for this small customer database company and for some kinds of scientific projects was that I had to do the installation myself. I didn't have a database administration team behind me. Therefore, I was looking for something very easy to handle. MySQL is easy to install, connect, and do all such things.

Its scalability can be better. It is probably not as scalable as Oracle. 

I had some issues with connectors. I used it from a C++ program, and it required some work to make it run, but finally, it worked.

I have been using this solution for two or three years.

I used it for a small customer database company in England with 20 employees. There were only two people using it. It was really a small solution. For this purpose, it was perfect, but I'm not sure how it scales. It was just not an issue in this case because we had very little data. 

Their technical support is fine.

It is easy to install. It takes just a few hours.

I will probably keep on using this solution. If you have a limited amount of data you want to store in the database, and you don't want to spend a lot of time on administration, it is certainly fine. 

I would rate MySQL a ten out of ten. It was perfect for our use case. 

We are primarily using it as a database for our products. For internally built systems, we have MySQL. We use it internally.

It's our database due to the fact that it's cheaper and is actually free to use.

The product is very easy to use, yes.

It's quite stable.

The solution is very compatible with many versions of Linux. Most of Linux is free, so it's easy to implement with MySQL. Whether it's Ubuntu, CentOS, or different types of Linux, it's the same across other operating systems, and therefore it's very easy to use and compatible with any demand that comes from developers. At the end of the day, MySQL is compatible with most of the platforms.

The solution has been very easy to scale so far.

The installation process is very easy.

The backup methods need improvement. MySQL needs to improve its backup methods so that you can actually do a backup without affecting products. Currently, when you're doing your backup, it locks the database. When someone tries to access it during a backup, it fails to read or to update. They can improve on the backup and all the backup features in general.

I've been using the solution for more than five years at this point. It may be as much as seven years or so.

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable in terms of performance.

The solution is very scalable. If you want to install it in the machine and scale that machine, you can do so. Or you add more machine nodes whereby you are actually clustering items and you're clustering your database within one site. The solution will actually extend these needs to another site for replication, DR replication.

We have about 20 people using the solution currently.

We do plan to continue to use the solution in the future.

All of our support is internal. We haven't subscribed to outside technical support.

That said, we haven't had any issues with the solution that would require support assistance either.

The initial setup is not complex at all. It is very easy to install as most of the Linux comes embedded so that even if you're under a different administrator, you should be able to just click and install.

Installation doesn't take more than 10 minutes for me. It might take up to 30 minutes or an hour for someone who is new. However, for someone who is used to MySQL, doesn't take more than 10 minutes to set up.

For deployment and maintenance, basically, we would need about three engineers. The one that actually does the hardware infrastructure, the one that does the operating system, and then the one that actually does the MySQL, which is the database administrator.

I handled the implementation myself. I did not need the assistance of integrators or consultants. 

The solution is absolutely free to use. It's one of the reasons we've chosen it.

We do evaluate other solutions. We also use other products, such as Oracle's SQL server.

When a trace comes for MySQL, we will check mostly the cost of installation and the cost for maintaining everything. We are choosing MySQL over the others that are actually licensed solutions mostly due to the fact that MySQL is free.

We are just customers and end-users. We don't have a business relationship with MySQL.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations.

I would rate it at a seven out of ten overall. 

My daily tasks are related to data mining and TBICO Spotfire is one of the products that I use. We are a small group of geologists operating in a niche area who are analyzing geochemical data. Our backend database is MySQL and we use products such as Power BI, Tableau, and Spotfire to display data for the geochemists.

I perform data-related tasks such as data manipulation and creating views, then updating the database afterward, all using SQL queries. As part of this, I'm making entries as needed or corrections to data that has already been processed.

Essentially, I'm doing data mining with SQL queries, although I wouldn't call what I am doing Data Mining exactly, because I already know the data model. I know the geochemistry data in my head, so I already know what I'm looking for when I write an SQL query. We're not doing machine learning or AI at this point, although it may come in the future.

Every now and then, we create dashboards for the geochemists, which cover their needs from the data.

The most valuable component for me is SQL Developer. It is pretty simple to use and I don't have anything really bad to say about it. It supports multiple window displays and all of the connections are available. A lot of people use Toad for this type of work, but I have not myself.

The functionality that I use most often is querying the data model.

I would like to see an autocorrect option, where if you're typing a query and you enter a comma instead of space, or something similar, the ability for it to be able to understand based on your previous scripts would be an advantage. For example, if you were to put a comma between your AND statements then it's not going to work. Maybe a smarter application where, as you're writing queries, similar to the way that grammar and spelling are checked when you type a text message on an iPhone, it could be autocorrected.

I would like to have the ability to cancel a query in SQL Developer. Specifically, I would like to be able to cancel the query should I accidentally write one that's going to loop, or have a JOIN wrong, where you get millions of records joining with millions of records over and over again. The availability to hit cancel so that it doesn't keep running would be helpful because, when such a thing happens, then you have to shut down the whole application and you lose any queries that you might've typed before.

I have been working with MySQL for approximately nine years.

This application is pretty easy to scale.

Within my department, which is technical data management, approximately 75% of the people use MySQL.

I have never had to deal with technical support from Oracle directly. We just raise tickets that go up and show operations, and in turn, they are the ones that deal with Oracle.

I have used several versions of Oracle MySQL including 10, 11, and 12, and I don't really see any difference between them.

MySQL comes pre-installed with our new PCs, so I have never been involved with the initial setup.

On the operations side, based on what I have seen in terms of people putting in tickets for issues, it seems that we have three people who support and maintain MySQL at different levels. I feel that having this number of resources assigned to maintaining a database is wasteful.

I think that a single person can be in charge of maintaining multiple databases.

As a data analyst, I am not in operations and don't have a say in which products we use.

My advice for anybody who is implementing MySQL is to ask around because there are many different ways that you can create a database now. Relational databases are no longer the best way to organize your data. It really depends on what it is that you're doing. For example, you may not need a relational database, but instead just a file structure. So, look at all of your options and speak with the experts to see what kind of database is needed before assuming that you need an RDBMS.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

MySQL is an Open Source RDBMS, which means you keep your costs low, as long as you don’t need to have support and/or you have your own MySQL expert. However, MySQL also offers the enterprise edition for users that would like support and more advanced features.

When it comes to features, MySQL offers all the features of a RDBMS system, including monitoring tools, backup and recovery, high availability and easy migration from other databases.

For any web project today you are going to need a database system. If you use any Content Management System, MySQL is most of the times the database of your choice.

MySQL is easy to use, most developers have experience using it and it is an Open Source, cost-effective solution.

Although MySQL should cover most of the needs of an average user, there are constrains that need improvement.

For example, MySQL doesn’t support check constraints. MySQL’s performance is not optimal on subqueries and can significantly increase the server load for database intensive applications.

Another issue is the ineffective table manipulation during multiple transactions which result in implicit Commits.

Finally, since MySQL is now part of Oracle, and Oracle already sells their own databases, changes and bug fixes have significantly slowed down for obvious reasons. Oracle cannot improve MySQL too much, since it will then compete with their commercial database systems.

We have been using MySQL either through custom projects or through CMS, for more than 15 years now.

We haven’t encountered any serious stability issues with MySQL.

However, as with all systems, you need to keep your database “tidy”, making sure to optimize it, clean it and avoid corrupt files.

For critical projects, it may be wise to have redundancy by having two servers synced all the time.

Most scalability issues with MySQL can be simply resolved by adding more memory, optimizing settings or moving to a better server.

Of course, if you are talking about 40-50TB of data, or critical applications, then you will probably need to move to a more commercial database, such as Oracle.

We haven’t used the enterprise edition of MySQL, since most of our projects do not require such support levels. Most issues are handled by our developers.

MySQL has been the only solution for all of our web projects.

Setting up MySQL is simple, however, optimizing it requires some experience which is also based on the demands of each customer.

When we started using MySQL, it was more or less the best Open Source RDBMS for web projects. Today, you have multiple options, such as PostgreSQL, SQLite and MariaDB, therefore the choice for a newcomer should be based on their project needs.

For us, MySQL is the choice for all of our projects. It is simply to use, supported by all content management systems and, of course, Open Source.

We haven’t had any major issues, and since we have now developed MySQL technical skills and custom libraries, there is no reason to move on with a different RDBMS, unless circumstances change.

I have worked on migration projects between Power BI on Microsoft and SAP modules, which involve exchanging databases from Power BI on Microsoft to SAP modules. 

Additionally, I have been involved in integration projects as a MySQL developer using Oracle SQL databases.

MySQL has facilitated the migration projects to SAP modules from Microsoft Power BI, easing database exchange. The integration is smoother and more efficient, which has been beneficial for handling various projects.

The ML modules in MySQL are advantageous since they make data handling easy and quick at MNQM. I have a lot of experience with QA test sections on MySQL, and it aids in connecting with third-party programs effortlessly due to its adaptation capabilities.

MySQL has some unique exchange problems when it comes to migration projects. The product could improve in terms of security, though not necessarily when compared to Azure. It can be improved in areas related to database exchange during migration projects.

I have five years of experience with MySQL.

MySQL is stable and continuously improves concerning databases. It is advantageous for projects in this area.

Scalability in MySQL involves unique troubleshooting for every project that differs according to database exchanges. You can solve scalability issues easily if you possess strong SQL skills.

Technical support from Oracle for MySQL is very good. They are really good at providing support.

Positive

I have experience with Oracle SQL and have not used Microsoft SQL. MySQL and PostgreSQL are the tools I currently work with.

The initial setup for MySQL took about one and a half hours, and only one person was required for the installation.

Cost-saving is not a significant concern, but focusing on project details is crucial. The project details provide exchangeable areas that can lead to cost savings.

The pricing for MySQL is slightly expensive, especially in unique projects for sectors like automotive and pharmaceuticals. Despite this, it is preferable for special projects due to its unique offerings.

I have experience with Oracle SQL and PostgreSQL.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.