Knowledge base
Databases Compared
Database engine choices for hosting workloads, compared on correctness guarantees, operational weight, and real cost: embedded engines against servers, MySQL against PostgreSQL, SQL against document stores, plus the legacy case study that keeps coming back.
12 topics · 12 articles
- SQLite vs MySQL: When the Embedded Engine Wins
SQLite and MySQL differ structurally before they ever differ in speed: SQLite is an embedded library that reads and writes a file …
- MySQL vs PostgreSQL: Where Each One Wins
MySQL and PostgreSQL have pestered each other for two decades and the honest summary is workload-shaped: MySQL wins where the shar…
- PostgreSQL vs MongoDB: Structured Meets Flexible
PostgreSQL and MongoDB answer opposite questions about shape: PostgreSQL asks you to name the structure first and rewards you with…
- NoSQL vs SQL: Choosing Honestly in 2026
The NoSQL versus SQL debate of 2009 through 2015 resolved the way honest debates do: both sides were right about their own workloa…
- Oracle 10g Compared: The Legacy Case Study
Oracle 10g is a fossil in active service: released in 2003 (Release 1) and refined through 2005's Release 2, its support lifecycle…
- MySQL: The Database Default, Still Earning It
MySQL is the database most of the web runs on, not because it is exciting but because it is predictable: InnoDB's ACID core, a rep…
- MariaDB: The Fork That Replaced MySQL, and Its Own Course
MariaDB started as the community's hedge against Oracle buying MySQL and grew into the database panels ship by default, with featu…
- PostgreSQL: The Database Professionals Graduate To
PostgreSQL is the open-source relational database that engineers recommend to other engineers: standards-leaning SQL, a transactio…
- MongoDB: Documents, Not Doctrine
MongoDB popularized the document store that scaled horizontally, and the story since includes schema design discipline, a replica-…
- SQLite: The Most-Deployed Database Most Admins Ignore
SQLite is the embedded database in every browser, phone, and aircraft panel on earth, and the doctrine that it is a toy is the mos…
- Oracle Database: The Contract Before the Technology
Oracle Database is the enterprise relational database with every enterprise feature imaginable, and the reason its technology deci…
- SQL Server: The Enterprise Database for Microsoft Estates
SQL Server is Microsoft's enterprise relational database: T-SQL instead of PL/SQL, Always On availability groups for HA, and a lic…
Field notes
Database comparisons at Kinetikatech start from the workload contract: write concurrency, data shape, retention horizon, and who actually owns the schema in five years. Everything else in the comparison follows from naming those honestly.
Correctness counts harder than microbenchmarks: transactional DDL, type discipline, and predictable query plans age better than a fast day-one number on a demo dataset. Engines that keep contracts in schemas instead of application code earn points here.
Operations reality decides more estates than theory: backup-restore drills, replication runbooks, upgrade paths, and whether hireable talent exists for the engine. We rehearse restores per engine, because restore time is the SLA that customers actually feel.
Legacy engines are case studies in sunk cost more than technology: the Oracle 10g generation teaches why databases outlive their support, why exit paths belong in every contract, and why the migration bid never reflects the engine cost itself.
We benchmark last, not first: Phoronix-style phrasing puts measured numbers after the shortlist has been pruned by contract and ops questions. Engines get compared on the workload shape your production data produces, never on defaults someone else tuned.
Related areas
Related services
Server problem? Hacked site? Slow website?
Critical issues answered within 30 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.