PostgreSQL versus MySQL

This question has always brought up heated debates in many forums .This article tries to compare these two db giants and help a begginer to opt among them.

• Features
  Here PostgreSQL has the upper hand. The stable version of MySQL does not support subqueries, stored procedures, cursors or views, all of which PostgreSQL does.One of their more serious mistakes was for the MySQL developers to justify the exclusion of many of these features by claiming that they were not necessary.These features include fundamental features such as referential integrity and transaction processing which is still not fully integrtaed in MySQL.This made MySQL to be considered as a “TOY DATABASE” among the hardcore professional community.
  
  
• Support
  MySQL is much more widely used, so many more applications support MySQL, and there is a larger community ready to assist you with problems, as well as more books and resources on MySQL.Of course, PostgreSQL has active mailing lists, and there are commercial companies offering support as well,it is not as extensive as MySQL

• Ease-of-use
  It is a highly situation dependant.It depends on what you are trying to do and the complexity assosiated with it.If you regularly use sub-selects or triggers , PostgreSQL is what you need.Rewriting them in MySQL or a scripting language will seem unecessarily complex. On the other hand PostgreSQL's extra functionality can translate into complexity if you do not require any of it.
  The tool we use also determine the ease to a great extend.phpMyAdmin for MySQL is a well-developed tool, while phpPgAdmin is not as fully-featured.
  

• Stability
  MySQL is used in extremely high volume environments without problems. PostgreSQL's advanced features are more likely to be stable than the newer MySQL equivalents, having been implemented for longer.
  

• Speed
  MySQL aimed first to be a fast database, while PostgreSQL aimed to be a fully-featured database, and both are converging in the other's direction.
  Postgres slower on low-end but has some options for improving.Postgres forks on every incoming connection - and the forking process and backend setup is a bit slow.
  MySQL handles connections very fast, thus making it suitable to use MySQL for Web.
  

• SPECIAL server-side FEATURES
  SPECIAL server-side FEATURES Postgres has rules, triggers, server-side functions that can be written in C, pgsql, python, perl and tcl languages. INSTEAD OF rules can be used for updating data through views.
  MySQL has simple (and probably inconvenient) mechanism for server-side shared libraries with C functions. Rudimentary support for triggers was included beginning with MySQL 5.0.2.
  

• Licensing
  PostgreSQL released under an MIT-style license and is thus free and open source software. As with many other open-source programs, PostgreSQL is not controlled by any single company — a global community of developers and companies develops the system.
  MySQL is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License,this ensures that MySQL will continue to be freely available in the sense of the open source idea.However for commercial applications of MySQL there is a second, commercial license available in addition to GPL.