Therefore, it’s worth it to consider the other advantages of Postgres over MySQL before you start your next project with the default database setting. Both platforms are perfectly capable of replication, and many cloud providers offer managed scalable versions of either database. When choosing between MySQL and PostgreSQL, performance should not be a factor for most run-of-the-mill applications – it will be good enough in either case, even if you consider expected future growth. On the other hand, MySQL has also been optimized to reduce the gap when it comes to heavy data writes. These features are absolutely critical to enterprise or consumer-scale applications, so using the old engine is not an option. If using InnoDB (which allows transactions, key constraints, and other important features), differences are negligible (if they even exist). MySQL is still very fast at reading data, but only if using the old MyISAM engine. The performance differences between MySQL and Postgres have been largely erased in recent versions.

In the past, Postgres performance was more balanced - reads were generally slower than MySQL, but it was capable of writing large amounts of data more efficiently, and it handled concurrency better. It was built to be feature-rich, extendable and standards-compliant. PostgreSQL, also known as Postgres, advertises itself as “the most advanced open-source relational database in the world”. Historically, MySQL has had a reputation as an extremely fast database for read-heavy workloads, sometimes at the cost of concurrency when mixed with write operations. Don’t fall into the trap of familiarity and comfort – a good developer must always make informed decisions among the different options, their benefits and drawbacks. Using the default option (MySQL in most cases) is rarely wrong, but it’s worth considering.

Most frameworks come with some object-relational mapping tool (ORM) which more or less hides the differences between the different platforms and makes them all equally slow.

The choice of a database management system is usually an afterthought when starting a new project, especially on the Web.

Syntax of postgresql vs mysql