HACKER Q&A
📣 atombender

Are any commercial databases worth it?


As a developer I've been using PostgreSQL for around 20 years, and while it started out as having inferior performance to the big players, in many ways it has slowly caught up. There are now other impressive databases like CockroachDB and TiDB that can also hold their own.

However, some recent performance struggles with Postgres (the details don't matter to this post, so I won't bore you with them) have made me wonder whether I'm missing out on anything. Are there general-purpose RDBMS products that are worth choosing over Postgres today? Or are they all roughly at the same level?

As far as I know, the commercial database space has been significantly reduced the last decade or two. The two remaining top players are Oracle and Microsoft, while earlier giants like DB2 and Informix probably mainly survive as legacy software. Then there are niche players like Vertica and VoltDB, which I know little about.

I've used Oracle and loved the incredible feature set, but then there's Oracle-the-company. Similarly, I've used Microsoft SQL Server and enjoyed its excellent performance and extensive feature set, but it's been many years, and I don't know how it stacks up today. DB2 was also a pleasant experience, but it's a long time since I used it.


  👤 atsaloli Accepted Answer ✓
Not an answer to your question but let me know if you would like a hand with the performance issue. My background is in ops, and I’ve done a fair amount of Postgres administration, including performance management. I’m between things right now and would be happy to look at it free of charge if you’d like.