Ask HN: Why should I learn PostgreSQL(MySQL to PostgreSQL switch)

2 points by przybytniewski 3y ago ↗ HN

Hi! I want to start a tough discussion: why should I learn PostgreSQL, spend time on that & migrate all my projects to PostgreSQL over MySQL?

Currently, for years I'm fully into MySQL. What makes it worth the time to jump into PostgreSQL? How does it help you? Is PostgreSQL better than MySQL? Why?

What's your experience with that? Is there anyone who switched from MySQL to PostgreSQL and wants to share their thoughts?

2 comments

[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 15.2 ms ] thread

f1shy 3y ago ↗

In my experience, we had an Oracle instance. It was really expensive. So I started to search for alternatives. The most similar free alternative was Postgres. MySQL got "disqualified" because was not real ACID. I'm talking 2010 or so... I'm not sure the current status. But take a look at it. ACID properties were very important, and for the kind of work we were doing, absolutely critical.

iknownothow 3y ago ↗

I would recommend Postgres and the best reason I can give is its very good "extension" ecosystem [1][2].

But I wouldn't go so far as migrating existing projects from MySQL to Postgres. Use Postgres on your new projects and let the old ones continue to use MySQL unless you had very good reasons to migrate.

[1] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/contrib.html

[2] https://pgxn.org/