Oracle XE or SQL Server Express

Question

I'm starting a new project here (Windows Forms). What's the best option today for a small (free as in beer) DBMS?

I've used SQL Server Express on the past projects, but time and time again I hear people saying that the product from Oracle is faster and more powerful.

It will be used in a small company (around 20 users) and will not reach the 4 GB limit any time soon :)

I don't want to start a flame war on my first post, so please point me to some link showing a good (and actual) comparison between the 2 products, if possible.

PS: I've heard about IBM DB2 Express too, but I coudn't find any information about it. (Marketing material from IBM doesn't count :) )

Answer 1

I would go for the SQL Server Express solution, unless you absolutely have to use a feature in Oracle that SQL Server does not have and you have no usable workaround.

Example of Oracle's strengths:

• Analytical Functions in Oracle ROCK!
• PL/SQL is better than T-SQL.
• If you're going to scale up the system to 1,000's of users all updating the same small dataset
• You scale upto multi-TB databases,
• You need to scale to need big numbers of CPU's in your server (over 8).
• need instant failover (RAC)
• you really cannot afford to lose a transaction.

Maybe you can tell, I'm a big Oracle fan! But I think that Oracle Express is a commercial reaction to SQL Server Express and I don't think Oracle really deep deep down likes it.

• You know with SQL Server that there is an upgrade path (SQL Server 2008 is soon) plus service packs.
• SQL Express is also more "install and forget" than Oracle.
• and it will integrate better with your IDE (if your using .NET)

In terms of speed, both are going to be lighting quick with such a small dataset size.