MySQL Reviews

I have been working for 25 to 30 years in this domain, and during this time, I have used various products such as MySQL, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL. Currently, in my product, I am using PostgreSQL, and in some projects, I am using MySQL. We are using the latest version of this solution.

We do projects for various government departments. We have used this solution for the transport department for vehicle registration, driving license, and all such things. We have also used it for port projects, depots, educational counseling projects, school databases, higher education, and health registry. As an organization, we have a lot of use cases of this solution.

It is very easy to install and has all basic database features.

We require more ease of use, scalability, and high availability. These are some of the critical features that we use and look for in a product. It should be easier to manage clusters. Scalability is very important for us because our projects and concurrency requirements are quite big. We also require high availability of the server, application, and other things.

It should also have more performance-based features or enhancements from the performance point of view. When we divide a database, it should be able to handle the queries very fast.

Whenever required, we also take support, but our people are quite experienced. They are able to manage it most of the time.

Its installation is quite easy.

We have our own people who do the deployment. We have various teams for various projects, and the size of the deployment team depends on the project. We have people who basically look after the DB activities, installation, and consolidation.

There is a licensing cost because we are going for a proprietary product. There are some other versions for which there is no licensing cost.

I would recommend this solution depending on the project. If a project requires the kind of features that are available in this solution, I would recommend this solution.

I would rate MySQL an eight out of ten.

The EER diagram is the most important feature for me as the EER diagram can show the inner picture of the database, such as the relationship between the tables very easily. We can also add, modify or delete EER diagrams very easily.

The user friendly interface which is easy to interact with such as creating backups, tables, views, and the EER model.

It has lot of options to interact with. Sometimes it is hard to find the appropriate options quickly. They need to add descriptions somewhere as to where a user can go to find the proper menu easily when required. Another problem is that since all the databases can be seen and operated together, it’s possible to make mistakes such as dropping the wrong database.

I have used this product for two years.

There was no issue with deployment

There were no issues with stability

There was no issue with scalability

The level of customer service is good. I understand sometimes they need to transfer the service to a knowledgeable person, so we need to have patience and explain the same problem several times.

The level of technical services is good. I understand the product is technical, so sometimes the reported problem requires more investigation.

I used phpMyAdmin. It is also a graphical interface but you have to buy the product while MySQL Workbench is free.

The initial setup is very straightforward. I didn’t face any problem at all.

I did the installation.

This product is good as it is a graphical interface. It's easy to do all MySQL database administration very easily. You just need to play around to be more familiar with it. The MySQL Workbench interface is well prepared to design a database including EER diagram, create table, and view very easily. The EER diagram allows the user to completely understand the database design, which is very important and useful for the people who are involved with the database. It’s easy to understand the inner picture of the database from the EER model.

We primarily use the solution for NDB and CG clusters.

The solution has made it easier for us to support our clients in India for a government technology project relating to CG clusters.

The IO segregation in CGE is valuable.

The auto-tuning and NDB cluster has some limitations regarding foreign keys. For example, when creating a partition with shared architecture data, the foreign keys do not work properly. Additionally, whenever we are working with this solution, as our projects are carried out globally, the size of the database is getting used fast. In case of replication and data access with two multiple sites or nodes to become a cluster, you need two separate data storage for accessing the same data from the two nodes. Hence, this consumes a lot of storage space.

We have been using the solution for five years and we are currently using version 8.0.31.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable, but I can configure this product with two nodes in case of a rack, but it is impossible in any of the databases. Therefore, I rate it a seven out of ten.

We do not have experience with customer service and support.

The initial setup is straightforward and it took less than twenty minutes. I rate it a nine out of ten.

One person is required for deployment.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. The solution is good but auto-tuning and the NDB cluster can be improved.

I used MySQL for academic purposes. I use it for learning purposes.

You can start anything with MySQL.

You can build your own app, and store your data.

It's a free solution for development purposes.

It's a good tool, a good database platform. Everything you can do, you can do for free.

I like that it's open-source and that it's free. 

Typically security will be on a security layer. I haven't really looked into the security of it, but it should be good.

It could be more secure.

I have been using MySQL for 16 or 17 years.

It's a stable solution.

We have trained hundreds of users.

I will continue to use this solution for learning purposes.

We have not contacted technical support.

You can download it and start using it.

It's very easy to install. It's a one-click Windows installation.

You can install and configure everything in a half-hour to one hour.

There is a lot of documentation available.

The maintenance can be done by anyone who has installed and used it.

I have never used the enterprise level of MySQL. 

I use the open-source free community version.

I am sure that the Enterprise version of MySQL is cheaper than Microsoft SQL Server, or IBM and Oracle.

It's cheaper than other tools. 

For anyone who wants to learn SQL, MySQL is free on Linux, Windows, or Mac Operating Systems.

MySQL can be deployed anywhere on the cloud or on a PC.

I would rate MySQL an eight out of ten.

I am a senior manager of the infrastructure team and MySQL is one of the products that I work with. We use it in an e-commerce portal. The database is light and everything works smoothly.

The performance is great.

This is a lightweight product that is not demanding on the resources, which is what I think gives it the edge.

We faced some details in clustering, although this may have been because we did not have enough knowledge about MySQL clustering. In general, an easier implementation for clustering would be an improvement.

The product is a little bit complex and it is difficult to find sufficient documentation.

We have been using MySQL for approximately six months.

We have not had any problems with stability.

MySQL is easy to scale.

We have dealt with Oracle support regarding other products such as Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic. I believe that it will be of the same standard, although I'm not sure.

I am not a technical person but my understanding is that they are competent.

My complaint about them is that when we have a problem, we have to explain the same thing many different times to different engineers. Every time we engage with a new engineer, we have to start all over again. This is a nightmare that we chased three months ago.

In addition to MySQL, we use Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server.

Oracle is an enterprise-level product but it is very straightforward to install and it has sufficient documentation and guides, which we did not easily find for MySQL.

Implementing clustering depends on a few different layers or different components. The clustering layer handles requests from the applications, and it is all a bit more complex than Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle.

The design, review, and deployment took approximately one week.

At the moment, because of the issue that we are having with the clustering, I may not recommend MySQL. It would first need to have the clustering problem fixed and then have a sufficient deployment guide. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

• Relational database (Although it's not 100% compliant with Standard SQL)

• Performance

• Open Source

• Ease of setup and use

• Ease of use with PHP, Python, and Java

Using MySQL helps to keep the costs down. With immense material available on the web, training is easy too.

This is the de facto DB for web development with PHP. If you worked with LAMP environment, this was the M in it (others being Linux, Apache Tomcat and PHP). With open source products, development was a breeze. Overall, this is a boon to small to medium database applications.

The simplicity of the product lets people abuse it. I've seen so many people create tables and add indices in PHP code. Some of these web developers only know some things about the database.

I have used this solution for about eight years.

We did not use a different solution for the applications that use MySQL. I mostly use Oracle for larger, enterprise software.

The initial setup was straightforward. There are a number of Open Source tools, including Toad and MySQL Workbench which helps with configuration and use.

This started as Open Source project under Sun. With Oracle acquiring Sun, MySQL is now owned by Oracle (not the community). Oracle promised to keep it open sourced, but the community is not convinced. So, there is a branch that's called Maria DB that's slowly taking over in some Open Source projects.

That being said, it is still an Open Source product and it is free to use under GPL license. This means you can always, get community support. But, if you want Oracle's support, that is not free.

If you use it in enterprise applications, you may have to purchase commercial license from Oracle. Here is a couple of links that discuss various options:

http://white-paper.b-lay.com/o...

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse...

We evaluated MS Access, SQLite, PostgreSQL, FireBird, and Oracle.

This is a relational database tool for small to medium sized applications. However, this didn't start as a Relational DB, so if you want a truly Relational Database for an Enterprise, similar to Oracle, you may want to look into PostgreSQL, as well. However, MySQL is still a very good database for internet based applications.

It's been used as a primary relational database for most applications. It's scalable and could easily be maintained and could be migrated to any Cloud-based Database as a Service solutions which are compatible with MySQL.e.g. AWS RDS MySQL, AWS RDS Aurora, Google SQL. 

It has improved scalability, easy-maintenance. It is open-source and is easy to use. 

MySQL is open-source. There are a lot of open-source communities trying to come up with their own patches, and to come up with their own features, which help MySQL develop faster than traditional databases like Oracle, which is closed source.

The solution is also compatible with a lot of other databases, like Percona, and it's compatible with MariaDB. It's also compatible with a lot of other shared database solutions.

Since MySQL is mostly used as a relational database in a lot of organizations, a lot of other solutions are being merged with MySQL and it's a rather easy process.

Unlike a lot of closed source services, the new features are solely based on customer feedback. The customer feedback of open source is way larger than the closed source application.

The developers of MySQL, which are Oracle MySQL, Percona, and MariaDB, seem to not be focusing much on object-oriented replication. Basically, replication is based on a text level of replication. There is a text level replication in Oracle, that is so similar it can be implemented in MySQL, however, it needs to pull a lot of resources. They have altered their approach for replication. Still, more focus on object-oriented replication would be good. 

They should come up with a better solution than the NDB cluster for better scaling. If they could come up with a better solution for write scaling, apart from the NDB cluster, which is supported by all open source communities, that would be great. Although the NDB cluster, is an open-source tool, it's not widely supported as a solution.

The latest 8.0 version has come up with whole new features. 

I've been working on Relational Database MySQL throughout my career, i.e. for 14 years. This relational database MySQL is evolved from its MyISAM only engine to InnoDB and is now compatible with other database engines too. e.g. NDB, Galera. 

MySQL is reliable. If you are talking about it in terms of relational databases, MySQL is pretty stable. If you want to go ahead with a quite secure database like any PCI database or a customer-related database or even financial data, it's still feasible to migrate to MySQL. 

There are a lot of features provided by Oracle MySQL, Percona, and MariaDB. They all have their own replication cluster. Percona has XtraDB, MariaDB has GaleraDB, Oracle MySQL has its own cluster as well. MySQL replication is common in all three MySQL flavors. MySQL replication is an excellent read-scalable feature, which has also evolved a lot from its earliest versions to the latest 8.0 version.

The NDB cluster, which has been supported and developed by Oracle, and is based on MySQL, is different than all of the other MySQL replication cluster solutions. It's both read and write scalable. All other cluster features work well for read scaling. NDB cluster is the only cluster feature recorded by Oracle MySQL, which is write scalable as well as re-scalable.

The solution seems to have plenty of technical support due to the fact that there are three companies who are product owners, and therefore there are three companies who are supporting MySQL. They are: Oracle, Percona, and MariaDB. They're doing pretty well. 

There are a lot of companies also that support their customers. This is the good thing about any software which is open-source. A lot of open source communities come up with their own features and they try to patch up with the original source. 

The initial setup has evolved a lot. It's pretty straight forward whether you're using Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. You can set it up on almost every operating system. 

It's supported by the open-source community, and they have plenty of documentation online that users can reference for assistance. If you are working in almost any operating system and you have any questions related to the installation, you'll find the documentation you need.

I am not sure, what the licensing costs are for the solution. From my experience, there is no straightforward cost. You can get that cost from the Oracle website about the Oracle MySQL licensing costs, however, it's not a straightforward price quote for everyone.

If you are an existing customer, you can negotiate and you can get a better quote. The pricing on the website may be for new customers. That said, you can still negotiate. The same is true for Percona and MariaDB as well. 

We are using MySQL 5.6, 5.7, and MySQL 8.0. 

In terms of advice, I'd say when implementing MySQL, if a company has been using any previous relational database, like Oracle, Microsoft SQL or DB2, the easiest way to migrate from any database is from Oracle to MySQL. There'll be some challenges from Microsoft SQL, as well as from DB2 to MySQL. Any existing application which is working with the Oracle database as a backend database, DB2 database as a backend database, or Microsoft as the backend database, should still work fine with MySQL, with minimal code changes. 

MySQL is a product supported by a lot of applications and a lot of organizations. Almost every client and every API would be able to support MySQL. There would still need to be a lot of testing, however, I feel almost all of the applications which need a relational database for their database solution, could leverage out of MySQL.