MySQL Reviews

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. 

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.

We are using it for RADIUS protocol, which is for network access. We are tracking the duration of user stations.

Table partitioning is most valuable. It is easy to use.

I am looking for the Temporal SQL feature, which basically means that there is complete history for each table. This feature is currently available in MariaDB.

PostgreSQL has something called a foreign-data wrapper, which is another way to access external data from inside. MySQL could have a similar feature.

I have been using this solution intermittently for six months. 

It is stable.

It is scalable. We currently have six users.

I don't have any experience with their technical support.

Its initial setup was straightforward. It took 10 minutes.

I did it myself. We have two people for its deployment and maintenance.

I am not paying, but I am not sure about the exact licensing requirements.

It is always compared with PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL Server.

I would recommend this solution to others. I plan to keep using it.

I would rate MySQL an eight out of ten.

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.

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.

It is an ideal database to use online learning environments and SMEs. It works well with  Moodle, the open-source learning solution, and is the defacto standard for that product as Moodle is written in PHP which generally goes hand-in-hand with MySQL. As it is an open-source and free solution it is an economical method of storing important companies or small business data. At the same time, it offers a rich set of functions comparable to other large-scale enterprise solutions such as SQL Server and Oracle. 

MySQL is easy to configure, use, and implement. It is free, and cost-effective, with a powerful plethora of tools. It has improved my organization for my clients using Moodle and MySQL databases, as problems are usually easier to fix quickly, and the database resources can be optimized, easily. Even though it is not as sophisticated as SQL Server and Oracle solutions, it is the database of choice for most Moodle implementations. It has a history of reliability, which is always useful in a business environment.

The Cross-platform support for MySQL is great, as you don't need to worry about which platform or operating system you need to install the platform. This allows for interoperability.

Like other databases, it has a rich set of functions, such as stored procedures and its own procedural language, which is akin to Oracle SQL. It also has trigger and cursor commands you would expect with a good database language.

Views are updateable, which is useful when you need to amend a specific view of data for different circumstances.

It has it's own Data Definition Language (DDL), and provides an Information Schema, to view what is "under the bonnet" of your database.

MySQL tutorials and guides could be improved. Often they are too complex for someone with no database experience to understand. 

It is not an easy database to learn for the novice, and very often users need to take a course, employ the use of an online tutor, or IT professional to assist. Also, it is known that it is often difficult to locate guides for specific functions for developers.

It might be good to have some way of creating web services easier, rather than having to write a User Defined Function (UDF) in PHP.

I have been using MySQL for about 10 years.

MySQL has a reputation for stability, and that is one of the reasons it is so popular. Because it is easily available, just works, and can be integrated reasonably easily into other software, it is often the default platform of choice. 

It has been around for years, and chances are it will be around for the next 10 years or so, as new versions continue to evolve.

MySQL is scalable for SMEs and works on a number of different operating systems.

I have not had many issues with MySQL in the past, so I rarely use the support service.

I have used various databases in the past, but for my current business needs, MySQL is ideal.

It was a simple setup, as it was included in the Moodle installation process for implementing learning sites.

ROI is not applicable, as MySQL is open source and is free, so you could say it is only the investment of implementing the database in your environment.

Pricing depends on the size of your business. For an individual to SME sized business the MySQL solution should be adequate for your needs. Setup costs are minimal.

Yes, but for Moodle Learning sites, SQL Server is more complex, and is not multi-platform, Oracle is not recommended for Moodle, but the nearest to MySQL is ProstgreSQL. MySQL is reliable and easy to use. 

You do need to have technical knowledge of databases in general, but MySQL is not too difficult to learn if used alongside PHPMyAdmin, but there are other tools you could consider, such as MySQL Workbench.

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.