MemSQL - Starting up / worth the move "Worlds Fastest Database"

TheBlackBenzKid picture TheBlackBenzKid · Dec 15, 2012 · Viewed 17.8k times · Source

MemSQL is claiming to be the "Worlds Fastest Database"

Faster than DB2, Oracle, mySQL and SQL server. Can anyone vouch for this?

I have searched the web and tried to gather as much information as possible about this. MemSQL is claiming to be the fastest database on the planet. Faster than Oracle, DB2, MySQL and MS SQL.

I have even spoken with their staff, founders (facebook ex employees) about their product. I have also seen the witty bench mark tests everyone is piping about. Is it really worth the move? Ashton Klutcher being a Angel Venture Capitalist behind the group does not show me real worth. I mean, Google BigTable would be a better move for some.

Can anyone share tips, articles, tutorials.. even some of their real customers. Their website does not show real examples and it lacks a kind of community you get with other database products - commercial too.

Please don't downvote, their is hardly anything out their on it and I really want a stack look at it. I am bought in by the hype I admit, it looks great, the videos.. the documentation and the brand.. but really.. is it that good? The commercial product is only limited to 32gb and I know many databases easily complete that.

Answer

alippai picture alippai · Dec 16, 2012

The MemSQL lacks community support, we have no information about the enterprise license (there is available a version for more than 32GB) and maybe there is no proof of speed for your application yet.

However you have to try it. Really. The performance for static queries and prepared statements are promising, the best use case I could emphasize is for low latency writing/updating records at extreme concurrency. You can't achieve performance like this with relational databases and the NoSQL solutions with this performance are rare.

In short time it will get SQL92 compliency, so the development and testing will be easier for you or for your developers (opposed to a NoSQL DB backend). There are thousands of applications with built-in performance benchmarks and long-running stability testing, choose the one which matches your case most. Personally I've tested Drupal, the worst performance was the same performance as a heavily customized MySQL configuration, on average it became 10x faster on DB side for logged in users.