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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Databases
  4. Databases
  5. IBM DB2 vs MySQL

IBM DB2 vs MySQL

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

MySQL
MySQL
Stacks129.6K
Followers108.6K
Votes3.8K
GitHub Stars11.8K
Forks4.1K
IBM DB2
IBM DB2
Stacks245
Followers254
Votes19

IBM DB2 vs MySQL: What are the differences?

Key Differences between IBM DB2 and MySQL

IBM DB2 and MySQL are two popular relational database management systems (RDBMS) that offer different features and capabilities for managing and storing data. Here are the key differences between them:

  1. Data Type Support: IBM DB2 supports a wider range of data types compared to MySQL, including support for large objects (BLOBs and CLOBs), user-defined types, and XML data. On the other hand, MySQL has a simpler set of data types, including support for text, numeric, and date/time values.

  2. Scalability and Performance: IBM DB2 is known for its scalability and performance capabilities, making it suitable for large-scale enterprise applications with high volumes of data and transactions. It provides advanced features like multithreading, parallel processing, and workload management for optimizing performance. MySQL, on the other hand, is more commonly used for smaller projects or applications that don't require the same level of scalability and performance.

  3. Storage Engines: MySQL offers multiple storage engines, including InnoDB, MyISAM, and more, each with its own advantages and limitations. In contrast, IBM DB2 utilizes its own storage engine that is optimized for performance and reliability.

  4. SQL Syntax: While IBM DB2 and MySQL both support SQL as the query language, they have some differences in their SQL syntax and supported features. IBM DB2 has a more extensive set of SQL functionalities and supports advanced SQL constructs like common table expressions, recursive queries, and complex subqueries. MySQL, on the other hand, has a simpler syntax and focuses on providing a user-friendly and easy-to-use interface.

  5. Transaction Management: IBM DB2 provides robust transaction management capabilities, including support for ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) properties and multi-level transaction isolation levels. MySQL also supports transactions but has more limited options for isolation levels and transaction management.

  6. Pricing and Licensing: IBM DB2 is a commercial database system that comes with licensing costs and support options. In contrast, MySQL is an open-source database management system that is freely available and widely used in the open-source community. This difference in pricing and licensing models can be a crucial factor for organizations when choosing between the two.

In summary, IBM DB2 offers broader data type support, advanced scalability and performance features, a dedicated storage engine, extensive SQL functionalities, robust transaction management, and a commercial licensing model. On the other hand, MySQL has a simpler set of data types, is more suitable for smaller projects, offers multiple storage engines, focuses on user-friendliness, has limited transaction management options, and follows an open-source licensing model.

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Advice on MySQL, IBM DB2

Kyle
Kyle

Web Application Developer at Redacted DevWorks

Dec 3, 2019

DecidedonPostGISPostGIS

While there's been some very clever techniques that has allowed non-natively supported geo querying to be performed, it is incredibly slow in the long game and error prone at best.

MySQL finally introduced it's own GEO functions and special indexing operations for GIS type data. I prototyped with this, as MySQL is the most familiar database to me. But no matter what I did with it, how much tuning i'd give it, how much I played with it, the results would come back inconsistent.

It was very disappointing.

I figured, at this point, that SQL Server, being an enterprise solution authored by one of the biggest worldwide software developers in the world, Microsoft, might contain some decent GIS in it.

I was very disappointed.

Postgres is a Database solution i'm still getting familiar with, but I noticed it had no built in support for GIS. So I hilariously didn't pay it too much attention. That was until I stumbled upon PostGIS and my world changed forever.

449k views449k
Comments
Ido
Ido

Mar 6, 2020

Decided

My data was inherently hierarchical, but there was not enough content in each level of the hierarchy to justify a relational DB (SQL) with a one-to-many approach. It was also far easier to share data between the frontend (Angular), backend (Node.js) and DB (MongoDB) as they all pass around JSON natively. This allowed me to skip the translation layer from relational to hierarchical. You do need to think about correct indexes in MongoDB, and make sure the objects have finite size. For instance, an object in your DB shouldn't have a property which is an array that grows over time, without limit. In addition, I did use MySQL for other types of data, such as a catalog of products which (a) has a lot of data, (b) flat and not hierarchical, (c) needed very fast queries.

575k views575k
Comments
Navraj
Navraj

CEO at SuPragma

Apr 16, 2020

Needs adviceonMySQLMySQLPostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I asked my last question incorrectly. Rephrasing it here.

I am looking for the most secure open source database for my project I'm starting: https://github.com/SuPragma/SuPragma/wiki

Which database is more secure? MySQL or PostgreSQL? Are there others I should be considering? Is it possible to change the encryption keys dynamically?

Thanks,

Raj

401k views401k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

MySQL
MySQL
IBM DB2
IBM DB2

The MySQL software delivers a very fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software.

DB2 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows is optimized to deliver industry-leading performance across multiple workloads, while lowering administration, storage, development, and server costs.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
11.8K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
4.1K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
129.6K
Stacks
245
Followers
108.6K
Followers
254
Votes
3.8K
Votes
19
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 800
    Sql
  • 679
    Free
  • 562
    Easy
  • 528
    Widely used
  • 490
    Open source
Cons
  • 16
    Owned by a company with their own agenda
  • 3
    Can't roll back schema changes
Pros
  • 7
    Rock solid and very scalable
  • 5
    BLU Analytics is amazingly fast
  • 2
    Easy
  • 2
    Secure by default
  • 2
    Native XML support
Integrations
No integrations available
Node.js
Node.js
JavaScript
JavaScript
PHP
PHP
Ruby
Ruby
Java
Java
Python
Python
C#
C#
.NET
.NET
C++
C++
Perl
Perl

What are some alternatives to MySQL, IBM DB2?

MongoDB

MongoDB

MongoDB stores data in JSON-like documents that can vary in structure, offering a dynamic, flexible schema. MongoDB was also designed for high availability and scalability, with built-in replication and auto-sharding.

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types and functions.

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft® SQL Server is a database management and analysis system for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.

SQLite

SQLite

SQLite is an embedded SQL database engine. Unlike most other SQL databases, SQLite does not have a separate server process. SQLite reads and writes directly to ordinary disk files. A complete SQL database with multiple tables, indices, triggers, and views, is contained in a single disk file.

Cassandra

Cassandra

Partitioning means that Cassandra can distribute your data across multiple machines in an application-transparent matter. Cassandra will automatically repartition as machines are added and removed from the cluster. Row store means that like relational databases, Cassandra organizes data by rows and columns. The Cassandra Query Language (CQL) is a close relative of SQL.

Memcached

Memcached

Memcached is an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data (strings, objects) from results of database calls, API calls, or page rendering.

MariaDB

MariaDB

Started by core members of the original MySQL team, MariaDB actively works with outside developers to deliver the most featureful, stable, and sanely licensed open SQL server in the industry. MariaDB is designed as a drop-in replacement of MySQL(R) with more features, new storage engines, fewer bugs, and better performance.

RethinkDB

RethinkDB

RethinkDB is built to store JSON documents, and scale to multiple machines with very little effort. It has a pleasant query language that supports really useful queries like table joins and group by, and is easy to setup and learn.

ArangoDB

ArangoDB

A distributed free and open-source database with a flexible data model for documents, graphs, and key-values. Build high performance applications using a convenient SQL-like query language or JavaScript extensions.

InfluxDB

InfluxDB

InfluxDB is a scalable datastore for metrics, events, and real-time analytics. It has a built-in HTTP API so you don't have to write any server side code to get up and running. InfluxDB is designed to be scalable, simple to install and manage, and fast to get data in and out.

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