MySQL Reviews

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. 

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.

Used as a data store for RESTful web services and other web applications. Was deployed to store RSS feeds, and for 100 joomla instances. 

MySQL is widely supported. We were able to integrate it with several different projects using various different programming languages with no issues.

Worked with Java, Perl, PHP, C# and C code. 

MySQL’s strength is in its fast connection, query and insert performance. I’ve benchmarked MySQL against several NoSQL and SQL databases and found it to be faster for getting lots of data inserted quickly.

The weakest link is replication. MySQL’s replication is touchy and doesn’t support master-to-master setups.

MySQL’s replication was implemented by playing back SQL statements getting executed on the master database node. That means if a slave node gets behind, it has to catch up by running every SQL query that has executed on the master. When the slave gets too far out of date, it is unable to catch up because the replication log is lost. 

Master to master replication is used to allow writes to either node in the cluster (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE).  Since MySQL does not support this, you can only safely send SELECT queries to slave nodes.  If you run an insert, update or delete against the slave node, then it is out of sync with the master and may break if a later replication event comes from the master on the same table.

I’ve had an issue where an InnoDB database grew too big and got corrupted. I was unable to recover it because there was not enough space on the server either. Be sure to have enough space.

We did encounter some scalability issues as it has limited clustering support, it requires scaling up rather than out to some degree. Of course, you can have read replicas. It also has a fall-off on performance with very high workloads, but it takes awhile to get there.

MySQL has replaced Microsoft SQL Server in several cases. MySQL is easier to manage and much more cost-effective.

The security model is different than the other databases.

There are tuning and monitoring benefits for people who purchase MySQL rather than using the free version.

Looked at Microsoft SQL Server and PostgreSQL. 

The porting code to or from MySQL is not that complicated, but the date type/format and functions are the biggest hurdles. Handling booleans data type is less efficient than the BIT type in the SQL Server.

I started to use MySQL at some point when I had some issues that I couldn't get around. I normally use the tool in professional opportunities and when I require support from MySQL.

Cacti is a tool for monitoring devices on a network in graphical terms, for which it uses MySQL or MariaDB. I mostly deploy Cacti with MySQL or MariaDB. Somewhere down the line, I started to have some issues with the permissions in MySQL, including its areas like superuser privileges and similar stuff, which took me a while to figure out. I think the tool is fine for me now.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it helps me to get my work done. I am more interested in getting my work done than any feature it comes with since, as long as it gets my work done, it can actually help me achieve my objectives.

Nowadays, I use phpMyAdmin or MySQL WorkBench to manage MySQL. I would have been in a position to comment on what requires improvement if I had spoken about the tool three years ago. There are no improvements needed in the UI of the solution since many tools in the market help the user get the job done. MySQL WorkBench belongs to Oracle.

The performance, stability, and security are areas with shortcomings in MySQL, where improvements are required.

It would be a great improvement if the product could be made affordable enough for me to be able to access support from MYSQL, especially when I deal with mission-critical applications.

I have been using MySQL since 2014.

It is a very stable solution. I deployed the product six years ago, and it still works fine.

I won't be able to comment on the product's scalability since I haven't deployed it in a cluster environment.

Our company has over a thousand devices, including switches and a couple of other devices, which report to MySQL for management purposes. In general, MySQL is a very robust tool.

Somewhere down the line, I got introduced to MariaDB as well. Nowadays, I use MariaDB rather than MySQL most of the time.

The product's initial setup phase is easy since I use package management software. I mostly take care of the deployment phase with the help of Docker and other tools. If you decide to use the default deployment settings provided by MySQL, then it is a straightforward process to deploy it.

A lot of things have changed since I have deployed the solution. The solution is like a new product nowadays since you just need an application to deploy it presently. The other area where you need to take care of the solution is knowing how to secure it very well so that it becomes less vulnerable and prevents people from taking advantage of the solution.

Mostly, I go to the MySQL website to download the binaries, and I just deploy them on a Windows machine or another system, which is just a straightforward process. The product's installation phase is not much of a problem.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

Earlier in my company, there were three people who used to take care of the deployment of the solution, but presently, I don't know who handles the deployment part.

In the past, the product was free for users, which ensured that users could experience a high return on investment from the use of the solution. I don't know the licensing models attached to the solution currently, but the return on investment is very high if you use it for a very limited amount of time.

MySQL was one of the tools I was introduced to from the very beginning when I was in school. Though I knew about Microsoft SQL Server, the lectures in my school did not introduce me to it since more focus was placed on MySQL. I find MySQL easier to use compared to Microsoft SQL Server.

I recommend the solution to those who plan to use it since it is a very good product that comes to my mind since it is always available. I don't know about the current licensing model of the product because it was an open-source tool earlier. I don't remember myself attempting to check what kind of license MySQL uses presently. In the past, Microsoft SQL Server used to cost a lot of money, which my company couldn't afford at that time.

I rate the overall system an eight out of ten.

We use MySQL for customer management authentication in our company.

The use of MySQL is really dictated by the software we use. So we have put software that dictates the use of MySQL and MongoDB. We think we've found the goal of the company related to strengthening its business systems.

Since we started the development, like, three years ago, it's just been improving, so there are no areas that need to improve. It is easy to use.

The licensing cost of the solution is expensive, which MySQL needs to consider improving.

I have been using MySQL for three years. It's based on the call systems or based on the console.

I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten since it has been running flawlessly.

It works well. So, I rate its scalability a ten out of ten. Our company is managing hundreds to thousands of clients, but we use MySQL for different projects. So, around 50 users work on it.

In terms of increasing the solution's usage, I think we've done enough, like, stabilizing MySQL.

Our company has contacted the technical support of MySQL. It was very easy to get connected to them. However, it cost us a fortune. For SMBs in South Africa, a thousand or ten thousand dollars an hour is a lot of money. It was expensive, but it was worth it.

We have previously used a solution for location and mapping-related stuff. Our choice to move to MySQL was dictated by software. So, we use different programs for applications.

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment process takes a few seconds.

We had to seek the help of some consultants to implement the product since there was some difficult stuff. But that was long ago. Nowadays, we avoid seeking help from consultants since it has become pretty simple. So, better experienced and well-trained people would do it for us. It's not a problem.

I believe we have a few cluster solutions. I think that MySQL is a premium product. But I don't manage that part.

The solution's documentation and support are awesome. Also, its speed has increased in the last few years. So, we have never had any issues with it. If there were any errors, then they were human errors.

Today with many other options, we stick with MySQL and recommend it to others. There are so many other things that are more suitable for different purposes, and I will have to do research to know more about them. MySQL has been around for a decade, so something cannot go wrong. Its big support communities make it easy to resolve problems since there is always somebody who can help.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Our primary use case for this solution is a home database of payments.

The feature I found most valuable is activity performance.

This solution needs to be improved when it comes to working with desktop applications on the developer side.

I have about 15 years of experience with MySQL.

My impression of the stability of this solution is that it is quite good.

My impression of the scalability of this solution is that it is standard. However, scalability depends on enterprise size and legacy product compatibility.

My impression is that their technical support is good.

My impression is that the initial setup is pretty standard. Some parts of it can be difficult. We had a tough time with the administration and database.

Overall, I would rate this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

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 primarily use the solution for the many small applications we use. However, we do not use it with our enterprise-level applications.

The solution is very simple. It's easy to use. That's the most important feature. 

We do have it supported by various programs we run with it.

The replication needs improvement. It's becoming a native cloud product like Oracle DB or Cockroach DB.

We started using MySQL in various products about 10 years ago when it was still an independent community product.

The solution has proven to be quite stable. We haven't experienced any bugs or glitches.

According to our experience, it's not really an enterprise tool that you can easily expand and scale the way you can with, for example, Oracle. It's good for small to medium-sized applications. It is not ideal for very big applications.

We have a data center that uses the application and it isn't very heavy on traffic. It basically runs on its own. We only use it occasionally. It's like a co-operation management system.

We do plan to increase usage, but we plan on looking at different databases. We're in the process of researching how scaling up would work. Chances are, we'll need to move to a different platform.

We've never been in touch with technical support. For us, so far, things have been working perfectly so there hasn't been a need to.

This is the first solution we've used. We don't use any other product. It's very popular with the in-house program, as we advised them to stick with this application.

We've used the solution for ten years and the setup hasn't changed much over time. It is, more or less, simple when you compare it to other databases. 

Deployment takes less than an hour.

It only takes one person to maintain the solution. The individual doesn't have to be an engineer. They just need to be a support person.

We don't need a consultant for the implementation. This is used by someone in our company that uses databases and has an average knowledge of the product. We don't even need a vendor. We can handle setup ourselves at this point. It's not like Oracle or other products that can be quite complicated.

We use the community edition of the solution.

We didn't evaluate anything before choosing this solution. However, there are a few new products coming up that are growing in popularity and we will need to research them. Products like the Cockroach DB, Nuo DB, etc. are on our radar to be evaluated in the future.

The most important thing other potential users need to do is to look at the use cases for this application and to evaluate how it's able to handle heavy loads, etc. Users should evaluate how it handles high-traffic. They'll need to ask themselves: is the solution usable for my applications? 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.