SQL Express for production?

sql-server sql-server-express
Gabe Sumner picture Gabe Sumner · Oct 7, 2008 · Viewed 27.1k times · Source

Is using SQL Express in a production environment a reasonable choice?

I looked at Microsoft's comparison chart:

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/features/compare-features.mspx

I would be using SQL Express with a small to mid-sized web site. I don't believe I would exceed the 4GB database size limit. Is SQL Express typically supported in shared hosting environments? Is there something I'm missing that would make SQL Express an unreasonable choice?

Answer

Mitchel Sellers picture Mitchel Sellers · Oct 7, 2008

I know many people using SQL Express for production and it works well, the biggest limiting factor is the absence of SQL Agent for automated backups. To automate backups you have to either take a VM image (if on a VPS) or use windows scheduler or some other technology.

The only other major limiting factor is the ram limitation, but for a small site I have not really noticed that being too much of an actual issue.

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