Is MySQL Good Enough for Large Scale?

Question

My question is probably fairly common, but I wanted to ask it anyway.

When choosing a database type for large scale application (social networking, for example), is MySQL able to handle it? I mean, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of users...

If not, I can't imagine that everyone would be using Microsoft Servers and SQL. What would be the suitable alternates?

If you are able to create a system which is too large or busy for MySQL to handle please let us know. :) — John Gardeniers, Apr 26 '11 at 03:35

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 26 '11 at 01:06

3

Facebook uses MySql. See this video, a presentation by Facebook devs, on how they do it http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2010/11/facebook-mysql-scale.php

answered Apr 26 '11 at 01:06

brendan

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Wow... that's the answer I was looking for. Why I am surprised that FB is using MySQL? – Apr 26 '11 at 01:22
Well, somewhat, facebook also uses Cassandra for its messaging system. – Jess Apr 26 '11 at 01:47

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 26 '11 at 01:43

2

this is a list of a few big fishes that use MySQL:

United Nations
Mc Graw Hill
YouTube
Facebook
Adobe
Wikipedia
Wordpress
Drupal

I hope this could help you to clear your mind ;)

answered Apr 26 '11 at 01:43

PachinSV

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I thought YouTube was backed by Google's BigTable. Are you sure its MySQL? – TheLQ Apr 30 '11 at 13:17

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 26 '11 at 01:04

1

Yes. Scalability is not one of the problems with MySQL.

answered Apr 26 '11 at 01:04

Phrogz

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"not one of the problems with MySQL" ... does that mean that there are other glaring issues with MySQL that I should know about? – Apr 26 '11 at 01:05
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@dcolumbus: As with **absolutely every** technology, it has it's drawbacks. – Trufa Apr 26 '11 at 01:57
@dcolumbus See [this old list of "gotchas"](http://sql-info.de/mysql/gotchas.html) or [this gotcha](http://blog.hagander.net/archives/78-A-new-MySQL-gotcha.html). I personally prefer PostgreSQL, but to it (of course) has its own tradeoffs. Here's a [small comparison](http://www.wikivs.com/wiki/MySQL_vs_PostgreSQL). – Phrogz Apr 26 '11 at 02:08
@dcolumbus: what Trufa said. Even the best piece of technology in the world will have a downside. You have to balance the pluses and minuses of every item in your software stack when deciding on them. – Rob Moir Apr 26 '11 at 07:30

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 26 '11 at 01:26

0

Yes it is. MySQL on proper hardware and good configuration can handle 1000s of writes per second and reads can scale out into 10's of thousands per second across replicated slaves

answered Apr 26 '11 at 01:26

sreimer

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Is MySQL Good Enough for Large Scale?

4 Answers4