I was talking to a friend earlier, and they said that if you do a query on 300,000 entries on both databases, mySQL will take about 4 min, while Oracle will take only about 2 seconds.

Does anyone know if this is true and/or why this is true / false?

That is false.

Oracle is a complete database solution while MySQL is a very basic but EXTREMELY fast database. They're two entirely different things and should be considered for the application they're being used in.


Also, personally I've run queries on a MySQL db with about 800k records and it NEVER takes 4 mn... I think 30sec was our max and this was on a crappy machine with a complicated query.

Well.... having used BOTH in extreme situations (millions of records with complex joins), I can add a little to this.

MySQL is fast for straight queries. Throw a join into the mix and it's slower. Throw a multi-dimensional join in, and you're dead meat. it could easily peg you down to 4 minutes. I could run a query on MySQL for 300,000 records that would take over an hour (a row-inequality self-hash, for example)

Oracle, with sub-select capabilities and stored procedures for compiled, optimized queries, and clustered indexing for faster joins on indexes is an incredible difference (for someone who knows how to use it). Its downside is that it's very difficult to learn. If you do learn it, though, you can VERY feasibly turn a 4 minute MySQL query into a 2 second procedure.

The bottom line is that MySQL is fine for straight querying.

When you want to get into complex queries or reporting, though... start thinking about Oracle or MS-SQL.