I have tried to search for MySQL vs. PostgreSQL benchmarks and most of them date to 2007. Are there any recent benchmarks that compare these databases?
I personally use MySQL and I think it's an OK database (performance and installation wise) and I think it's a bit risky to jump on PostgreSQL when most others use MySQL (e.g. Flickr, Facebook, Yahoo, Google just to name a few).
Of note, Sun ironically performed a benchmark between PostgreSQL and Oracle. The results were that PostgreSQL performed very closely to Oracle under several scenarios.
Benchmarks between DBs are pretty rare because they are so difficult to control for. The configurations make a big difference. One set of benchmarks is here: http://tweakers.net/reviews/657/6 but thats in 2006. Also, MySQL has known fatal bugs in the production release so mysql isn't exactly a safe choice.
I personally use MySQL and I think it's an OK database (performance and installation wise) and I think it's a bit risky to jump on PostgreSQL when most others use MySQL (e.g. Flickr, Facebook, Yahoo, Google just to name a few).