TopShelf's Journal: Which free (as in beer) database would you recommend?

At the risk of starting a classic flame war, I have a pressing request for assistance.

As a hobby, I blog about NHL hockey, in particular the extension of statistical analysis which until recent years has been about as sophisticated as ancient cave drawings. For the last year or so, I've pursued this by compiling data in spreadsheets for a series of ad-hoc analytical pursuits, but the time has come to formalize my data structures into a database with tables fed by scripts that parse game data as posted at NHL.com. But which free database should I use?

Some operational parameters to consider: I'm envisioning some basic data import tables (I'm developing scripts in Excel to pull the web data down and parse into columns), followed by a series of tables fed by programs which pull data together from a variety of sources (stored in table form for ease of reporting). Most of these tables would only run in the 1,000 - 100,000 range, while one in particular could run as high as 5,000,000 or so. There aren't many instances where multiple indexes over a given table would be required, but the reporting built off these tables could be computationally intense (i.e. exponential moving averages built off of subtotals).

So which DB should I choose? MySQL, PostgreSQL, Open Office's Base? I'm at a bit of a loss as to which direction to go in, and I'd rather not head down a particular path only to find it's not going to pan out.

well

[stoolpigeon]

if you are only worried about free as in beer - you can throw SQL Server Express [microsoft.com] and Oracle Express [oracle.com] in the mix. I think the primary restrictions are the same on both - one processor and 4 gig of data - but you should check the docs on each.

You mention Excel - so you must already be using windows and sql server ties in very nicely with windows and other ms products. The interface is pretty nice and simple to use. I don't think the interface on Oracle is quite as easy - but you do gain the ability to run

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[TopShelf]

Interesting, I wasn't aware of SQL Server Express - since I've got Office 2007 (which doesn't include Access), that would seem a natural choice. Thanks for the tip...

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[stoolpigeon]

It will do a lot - and I think that the 4 gig limit is per database - so you can just create more databases if you get more than 4 gig worth of data. And yeah - if you're already using Windows and MS Office - it ties in real nice. If you ever want to go mobile - they also have a version of sql server than can run on mobile devices. I'm pretty sure it is free too. And you can push/pull data between it and regular sql server.

I'm no MS fan- but SQL Server has come a long way and really isn't a bad

I like Postgres

[jawtheshark]

See subject.... I'm pretty sure that all options will do fine in your situation (even the above mentioned SQL Server and Oracle... as long as you don't do anything commercial. The licenses prohibit that AFAIK)

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[FortKnox]

I prefer postgres, also. I think its a more mature and more feature rich db than mysql. However, mysql has a bigger community, so if you are looking for bells and whistles, mysql has plenty of them...

I've only done small stuff - but I like MySQL

[Degrees]

I've used MySQL as a back-end for WinBatch by using an ODBC connector, and it worked fine. I happened to be reading and writing pages in a Mediawiki site and things just worked. I also liked the fact that I installed phpMyAdmin [phpmyadmin.net] and could do an awful lot interactively.

And one year, at home I set up MySQL on Winders and used it for mail-merge to generate the Christmas Card address labels from OpenOffice. Talk about using a sledge where a tack hammer would do.... Yes, last year I went back to WordPerfect mail