Stop using MySQL in 2026, it is not true open source

https://optimizedbyotto.com/post/reasons-to-stop-using-mysql/

347 points · 101 comments · view on lemmy.world

101 Comments

JoMiran@lemmy.ml · 199 pts · 252d (36 replies)

MySQL belongs to Oracle. That's literally all you need to.know in order to avoid it.

FlowerFan@piefed.blahaj.zone · 64 pts · 252d (2 replies)

how did the joke go? "one rich asshole called larry ellison"?

ijhoo@lemmy.ml · 14 pts · 252d (1 reply)

what's the joke part?

slazer2au@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 252d

It spells Oracle.

anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 252d (6 replies)

Isn’t that the point of Postgresql. It’s basically an open source version of MySQL.

I’m sure there are some proprietary nonsense that MySQL has, but I’ve never needed it in 17 years

sobchak@programming.dev · 31 pts · 252d (1 reply)

Postgres is basically an open source version of Oracle DB. Much more featureful than MySQL. I believe Oracle bought MySQL just to kill it.

msage@programming.dev · 13 pts · 252d

MySQL always sucked ass.

PostgreSQL went in a different direction, started with best support of the SQL standard, then optimized everything to make it fast.

Postgres has/had the best SQL standard support out of every server, open-source or not.

MySQL was at the other end, only started catching up after Oracle bought it.

Eyekaytee@aussie.zone · 29 pts · 252d

afaik MariaDB is the open source version of MySQL

Jajcus@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 251d (1 reply)

That is an insult to PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL was fully featured relational database even before it implemented SQL. It started much earlier tha MySQL.

And MySQL didn't have proper transactions or data integrity constraints (including foreign keys) for long time, while calling itself an 'SQL database'.

anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 251d

Thank you, I never had time to read up on its history when I was busy smashing out sites on stupid deadlines with constant last minute changes and morons for project managers.

Auli@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 250d

MariaDB

Psythik@lemmy.world · -42 pts · 252d (25 replies)
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JoMiran@lemmy.ml · 92 pts · 252d (5 replies)

Hatred of Oracle predates "cancelling" by decades. Oracle is and has always been one of, if not the most disgusting and vicious companies in tech. They kill everything they touch.

If you need a political component, then Oracle = Larry Ellison, but Oracle hate predates and supercedes the American political slide into fascism.

s38b35M5@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 252d (4 replies)

I was at a party about fifteen years ago. A guy introduced himself and we gabbed for a few minutes. Then he asked what I do for work (IT sysadmin at the time) and I told him and asked the same. He said he was in sales for a tech company. I asked which one, and he stepped close and whispered, "Oracle." I could see he was prepared for me to bring the hate. He saved himself when he told me he was actually leaving for a gig at Dell. Later, I learned from the host that he made that part about leaving up because he felt bad. I later learned he went to work for Nutanix. Poor guy hated his own employer, and it was obvious.

JoMiran@lemmy.ml · 17 pts · 252d (3 replies)

Nutanix...oof. I deal with them every day. It isn't their fault their shit can't handle what we do, but it is their sales folk that constantly lie and misrepresent.

Wanna know one of rhe big reasons people hate Oracle so much? It's their sales guys. They are awful. If that guy went from Oracle to Nutanix, that tells me that I cannot trust a single syllable out of their mouth.

frongt@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 252d

Sales? No, their sales department is second to their legal department in hate.

s38b35M5@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 252d

Lol! I'm glad you picked on that. I won't badmouth them, but the user experience does that for them. That guy from the party must hate himself, haha

0x0@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 251d

their sales folk that constantly lie and misrepresent.

So... your average sales folk?

non_burglar@lemmy.world · 48 pts · 252d (4 replies)

When they bought Sun, they:

  • killed Solaris, effectively
  • tried to kill zfs too
  • nearly killed mysql with licensing audits
  • became borderline evil with licensing practices
  • acted like complete assholes in court, holding up cases for years
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 252d (1 reply)

Sun was such a useful contributor to the ecosystem and they fucking trashed absolutely everything. It's a miracle that so much stuff could be saved.

0x0@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 251d

Oracle triggered a fork bomb.

dukatos@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 252d (1 reply)

You forgot what they did to Java, plus they sued Google for using Java API.

hexmasteen@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 247d

and OpenOffice and VirtualBox

iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 252d (6 replies)
Psythik@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 252d (5 replies)

Oh so it's a greed thing, but not quite a Nestlé level of evil thing, then. Meh.

partofthevoice@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 252d (3 replies)

You clearly haven’t tried using one of there services APIs.

azertyfun@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 252d (2 replies)

I mean, Nestlé killed hundreds of thousands in impoverished countries. I think the Oracle service APIs can't be that bad, though I'm sure they would be if it made Larry Ellison $50.

0x0@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 251d (1 reply)

Can you elaborate on Nestlé?
I know they're shit and avoid anything Nes* but am unaware of actual data.

badgermurphy@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 251d
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frongt@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 252d

Only due to lack of capability, not desire.

forrgott@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 252d (1 reply)

Why would you keep track? Can't form your own opinions?!

And what the fuck hasn't Oracle done? Like, seriously, they've been a known bad actor for literally decades now...

Psythik@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 252d

I'm sorry I don't follow this company's actions as closely as you do. I can't even remember the last time I used Oracle-branded software. (Unless you count MySQL, which I've never had an issue with. It just works.)

jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 252d

"Lets use Oracle DB for that."

Statements made by the utterly deranged.

fizzle@quokk.au · 6 pts · 252d (1 reply)

I don't know the actual reason, but I personally get a bad vibe every time I see the logo because usually it means I'm trying to install or fix some java bullshit, which never goes well.

0x0@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 251d

Here's a few.

0x0@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 251d

The hell did Oracle do?

Have you been living under a rock? Think 2010 for starters...

Auli@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 250d

People have hated Oracle for decades.

slacktoid@lemmy.ml · 89 pts · 252d (10 replies)

Stop using mysql, you have postgres.

possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 25 pts · 252d (9 replies)

And mariaSQL

call_me_xale@lemmy.zip · 43 pts · 252d (5 replies)

Hell, even SQLite is good enough for most small projects.

dan@upvote.au · 38 pts · 252d (4 replies)

SQLite is underrated. I've used it for high traffic systems with no issues. If your system has a large number of readers and a small number of writers, it performs very well. It's not as good for high-concurrency write-heavy use cases, but that's not common (most apps read far more than they write).

My use case was a DB that was created during the build process, then read on every page load.

derpgon@programming.dev · 3 pts · 252d (3 replies)

Wow, I never thought about storing build data in an SQLite file. That's quite clever.

dan@upvote.au · 13 pts · 252d (2 replies)

One of SQLite's recommended use cases is as an alternate to proprietary binary formats: https://sqlite.org/appfileformat.html. Programs often store data in binary files for performance, but you get a lot of the same functionality included with SQLite (fast random access, concurrent usage, atomicity, updates that don't need to rewrite the whole file, etc) without having to implement a file format yourself.

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but Facebook'a HHVM used to store the compiled bytecode for the whole site in a single SQLite database: https://docs.hhvm.com/docs/hhvm/advanced-usage/repo-authoritative/. Every pageload loaded the bytecode for all required files from the DB.

hoppolito@mander.xyz · 3 pts · 251d

Fascinating read, I should definitely also make way more use of sqlite for little side projects.
Thanks for the link!

0x0@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 251d

They also have a (one-time fee) encryption extension.

immobile7801@piefed.social · 13 pts · 252d (2 replies)

FWIW mariadb was bought by a private equity firm in 2024

psoul@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 252d

Oh no… it was the easy solution for Wordpress and other plug and play self hosted services .

alibloke@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 252d

The corporation was bought by k1 capital. The foundation and therefore the open source version will always be free

melfie@lemy.lol · 55 pts · 252d (1 reply)
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skisnow@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 251d

wow, I didn't need any more reasons not to support Oracle but thanks anyway

herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml · 53 pts · 252d (4 replies)

Didn't Postgresql effectively win the database wars? Why use anything else?

dogs0n@sh.itjust.works · 29 pts · 252d (3 replies)

Postgres or sqlite are the only ones I ever consider nowadays.

Takios@discuss.tchncs.de · 8 pts · 251d (1 reply)

If only the upgrade process wasn't so annoying with postgres...

msage@programming.dev · 6 pts · 251d

What do you mean?

Stop DB, run pg_upgrade, start it, win?

Or set up logical replication into newer version, wait for sync, test use-cases, switch write?

Where do you get better experience?

Hawk@lemmynsfw.com · 5 pts · 251d

See also duckdb and clickhouse for OLAP of course.

MrSoup@lemmy.zip · 47 pts · 252d (2 replies)

MariaDB >>>

I've been using it since ever on my rpi because they say it's easier on resources

YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 252d (1 reply)

Who are “they”?

We use MariaDB at work but I don’t know why it was originally chosen over PostgreSQL, as that was before my time.

MrSoup@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 251d

Blogs and forums back then when I looked it up.
Can't remember exactly where (since it's been a long time ago), but I'm sure more than someone claimed it.

Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu · 43 pts · 252d

If you don't want to use postgresql for some obscure reason use MariaDB real open source MySQL drop in replacement.

schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de · 42 pts · 252d (14 replies)

Are there real advantages to using either MySQL or MariaDB instead of PostgreSQL?

jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works · 50 pts · 252d

No. But there are a number of advantages of using PostgreSQL over the others.

Rikj000@discuss.tchncs.de · 10 pts · 252d (2 replies)

Yeah,
I did a speed test comparison between Oracle MySQL and MariaDB MySQL,
MariaDB is about 10 times faster.

FYI: When Oracle bought MySQL a lot of developers left and created MariaDB, so the brains behind the project moved, and in the meantime Oracle did a great job of fucking things up.

schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de · 12 pts · 252d (1 reply)

That's not what I asked. I asked about a comparison of both of them to PostgreSQL.

Rikj000@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 252d

Oh misread my bad,
not much experience with PostgreSQL

illusionist@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 252d

Depends on the task but for general usage there is no big difference. You would choose one over the other if you need one for work.

roguelazer@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 252d (1 reply)

MySQL often has moderately higher performance (particularly for workloads where you want your data clustered by PK, which is how InnoDB is natively structured) and its replication system is much more flexible than either of PostgreSQL's. I like Percona personally, but MariaDB is fine too.

msage@programming.dev · 0 pts · 252d

Is it true?

Postgres with correct fillfactor, it doesn't create new pages and works very fast.

Replication in MySQL always sucked ass, only received synchronous replication in some new edition, and that also didn't sound great.

Postgres has logstream and logical replication, both of them can be set to various levels of synchronicity, and logical replication is configurable at least as well as MySQL is in terms of which data is sent.

kumi@feddit.online · 5 pts · 252d (4 replies)

Operating and securing Postgres is a steeper learning curve. MariaDB is more forgiving for best-effort shoestring setups without compensating scalability for it.

As a dev I'm agnostic, as an owner and computer scientiest I prefer Postgres, as a sysadmin or *Ops I will put my hand up for MariaDB any day if I'll be on call or maintain deployments.

msage@programming.dev · 1 pts · 251d (3 replies)

Is Maria that much better than MySQL?

Cause that one is absolute shit, very difficult to maintain, and requires lots of config changes and even replicas can disconnect when something's not 100% ok.

I will take Postgres over any other DB any day of the week.

0x0@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 251d (2 replies)

Is Maria that much better than MySQL?

MariaDB is MySQL's fork, initiated by the main developers, so...

msage@programming.dev · 1 pts · 251d (1 reply)

Does that mean it's still an utter borderline unusable shit?

0x0@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 251d

I'd say ti's a little bit better.

0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 252d

If you're constrained by resources (CPU/RAM).

There's a reason most web hosts usually have mariadb and not postgres.

Wispy2891@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 252d

Maybe that once every 2 years when you upgrade to major version it does it automatically? You save 15 mins every 2 years?

800XL@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 252d

What year is this? No one should be using Mysql since MariaDB came about.

BrilliantantTurd4361@sh.itjust.works · 33 pts · 252d (6 replies)

Why would anyone ever choose mysql over postgres?

Scrollone@feddit.it · 11 pts · 252d (5 replies)

MySQL has been the "default" choice for a long time for PHP programmers. I don't know why.

Evotech@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 252d (1 reply)

LAMP indeed

WhyAUsername_1@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 252d

We need LAPP . Stat!

whoisearth@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 251d

It used to be free with less of a barrier to entry than postgres

msage@programming.dev · 3 pts · 251d

Tutorials mostly.

Andres4NY@social.ridetrans.it · 1 pts · 252d

@Scrollone @BrilliantantTurd4361 Because it used to be a lot faster than postgresql for smaller sites. MyISAM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyISAM) was super lightweight, at the expense of the occasional corrupt database (oops).

I don't know how many new people are coming to PHP these days (as opposed to javascript/python/rust/etc), but certainly the older PHP coders grew up using mysql.

0x0@lemmy.zip · 27 pts · 251d

No one should be using MySQL since 2010.

UnknownMp@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 252d (1 reply)

Perhaps MariaDB is a better choice.

unknownmp@mastodon.social · 1 pts · 252d
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ikidd@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 252d (1 reply)

What rock do you live under if you're using MySQL over MariaDB?

lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 251d

Older people about to return to programming, and most of the online tutorials they have are about 20 years old, having no idea an alternative exists.

dan@upvote.au · 12 pts · 252d

MariaDB is not always a drop-in replacement. There's several features that MySQL has that MariaDB doesn't, especially related to the optimizer (for some types of queries, MySQL will give you a more optimized execution plan compared to MariaDB). It's also missing some newer data types, like JSON (which indexes the individual fields in JSON objects to make filtering on them more efficient).

MariaDB and MySQL are both fine. Even though MySQL doesn't receive as much development any more, it doesn't really need it. It works fine. If you want a better database system, switch to PostgreSQL, not MariaDB.

possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 252d

That's why I moved to MSSQL

/s

androidul@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 252d

when is Oracle gonna go Broadcom mode on MySQL, still waiting for the moment 🍿

Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 252d (1 reply)

But but but, it has the word “my” in it

/s

folekaule@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 252d

Both MySQL and MariaDb are named after the developer's daughters.

bored_boar_onboard@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 251d

Clearly you can’t use MySQL because it isn’t webscale.

SneakyWeasel@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 251d

Wamp anyone? (I think thats what its called, im at work and cant check my pc) Or am i the odd one out.

GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 252d (1 reply)

wank bank

tacosanonymous@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 252d

Dude. You never finish.

otto@programming.dev · 1 pts · 251d

In case you are Czech, there is a translation at https://www.root.cz/clanky/prestante-uz-pouzivat-mysql-neni-to-skutecny-open-source/?nahled=1

Glad to see more translations show up!

ianhclark510@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 252d (3 replies)

Apache Phoenix: allow me to introduce myself

AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 252d (2 replies)

Who?

ianhclark510@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 251d (1 reply)

Apache Phoenix

AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 250d

Looks great for my blog!

fizzle@quokk.au · -4 pts · 252d (3 replies)

I didn't know this was ever in question?

Also stop calling it "my sequel"

TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 252d (2 replies)

stop calling it "my sequel"

Why?

frongt@lemmy.zip · -5 pts · 252d (1 reply)

Sequel is Microsoft. S-Q-L is Linux.

surewhynotlem@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 252d

Microsoft's is "squeal". Like a pig. When you get the bill.