Comparative Analysis: Open Source and Proprietary RDBMS Systems

This report provides a detailed comparison between open-source and proprietary relational database management systems (RDBMS), specifically focusing on PostgreSQL and Oracle. The analysis highlights the key differences in terms of cost, features, performance, and scalability. The report discusses the advantages of open-source RDBMS, such as PostgreSQL's ability to support mission-critical workloads at a lower cost and its ease of integration. It also examines the benefits of proprietary RDBMS like Oracle, including its transaction grouping and versatility. The report emphasizes the importance of choosing the right system based on specific business requirements, considering factors such as processing power, support options, and the need for specialized database administrators. The comparison helps readers understand the trade-offs between the two types of systems, enabling them to make informed decisions for their database implementations.

Running Head: OPEN SOURCE VS PROPRIETARY RDBMS 1
OPEN SOURCE VS PROPRIETARY RDBMS
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Open Source vs Proprietary RDBMS
As the database technology continues to expand, business organizations are constantly
advised to make sound decisions when it comes to the relational database management systems
they implement. Basically, the dilemma has been based on making the choice between the open-
source relational database management systems and the proprietary relational database
management systems. Like any other open-source software, open-source RDBMS are the freely
viewable, modifiable and redistributable RDBMS by any interested party. These relational
database systems are different from the proprietary RDBMS in the sense that proprietary
RDBMS are owned and controlled through patents, licenses and rights which are under copyright
laws (Coates, 2019).
In modern-day technology, open-source RDBMS have matured to the extent of being
considered among the standard infrastructure choices of current enterprise applications. While
open-source databases such as the MariaDB’s MySQL and Enterprise DB’s Postgre solutions
RDBMS have registered a growth of about 55 percent and 46 percent respectively, half of the
proprietary RDBMS users are slowly shifting to the open-source RDBMS. This has been
attributed to the benefits of open source RDBMS over the proprietary RDBMS.
Comparing PostgreSQL which is an open-source RDBMS with Oracle which is a
proprietary RDBMS, there is a big difference between the two RDBMS. For instance, the high
cost and vendor restrictions on the Oracle RDBMS have been driving away potential users. On
the other hand, PostgreSQL has matured through its ability to support mission-critical workloads
at global enterprises cheaply (Prasad Sharma, 2016). PostgreSQL, for example, has grown to
become one of the most popular relational databases in the world through its recent releases

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which have enhanced its usability. PostgreSQL popularity has been promoted further by its
advanced server integration performance, security and manageability features which enhance and
support business-critical workloads. Compared to Oracle, PostgreSQL has enabled business
organizations to enjoy the benefits of high performance and enterprise-class database services
which are also cheaper. Although there a number of years since PostgreSQL databases were
developed, it has remained to be a highly reliable open-source database platform. This is because
of its ability to offer both object-oriented and relational structures within the same database
systems, which also make it easy to integrate with any kind of mobile app or website, codebase.
PostgreSQL is also a cross-compatible RDBMS with MySQL to facilitate sites which have been
developed on WordPress (Singh & Singh, 2018). With the latest versions of PostgreSQL,
complex stored procedures that allow programmers to write code and scripts with database tables
are now supported. Those procedures are set to run on a variety of triggers while maintaining the
stability of the applications at the same time.
However, it is clear that PostgreSQL has proved to be RDBMS’s that require a lot of
processing power in order to run effectively, failure to which they give poor performance results
than proprietary RDBMS and other open source solutions. This is based on the fact that web-
based applications that require API frameworks run at high rates and a high number of reading
actions on this database slow down its performance on front-end tools. Also, despite its dedicated
community of developers and users, it offers limited options for support, meaning that users may
face challenges when finding hosting providers who integrate PostgreSQL as out of box
solutions (Coates, 2019).
Oracle RDBMS, on the other hand, is a proprietary multi-model database management
system that is owned and marketed by the Oracle Corporation. Mainly, this RDBMS is used to

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support online transaction processing systems and data warehousing systems. This RDBMS has
a number of important features that enable it to stand out. For instance, it allows the grouping of
transactions contrary to many RDBMS’s. Through it, several transactions can be grouped into
the same batch for processing. Other forms of RDBMS are limited to executing each transaction
at a time in sequential order. This gives Oracle RDBMS greater scalability over other forms of
RDBMS which are limited to expanding vertically. Vertical expansion is significantly expensive
than horizontal expansion because it requires additional server memories, ventilation equipment
and hard drive capabilities.
In addition to batch processing of transactions, Oracle RDBMS offers other ways of
improving the performance of databases. They allow the use of multiple servers on the same
database with real application cluster features. Significantly, this increases the processing power
of a database for only the price of an additional server (Prasad Sharma, 2016). Also, Oracle
RDBMS gives more options to fine-tune database operations to suit server capabilities. In terms
of versatility, Oracle RDBMS gives database users the flexibility of running their databases on
any operating system. This is contrary to some of the RDBMS whose dedicated languages can
only allow them to run on operating systems from the same manufacturers. A good example is a
Microsoft SQL server which only runs on Windows-based machines.
Despite its advantages, the cost of Oracle RDBMS’s put them at a disadvantage when
compared to open-source RDBMS. The cost difference starts with the licensing fee which goes
up to ten times higher. Also, Oracle RDBMS’s which are highly complex and use specialized
languages require qualified database administrators to run them. The few administrators are very
expensive, getting salaries which are two to three times more than PostgreSQL administrators
could be paid. Oracle RDBMS’s are also difficult to learn and operate when compared to other

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RDBMS’s. For instance, PostgreSQL is easy to set up and install because it has minimum
customization. It provides sample databases that can be used as frameworks for company
information.
When the two systems are put into comparison, it comes out clearly that each system has
its own unique features that make it stand out. For instance, Oracle RDBMS allows grouping of
transactions, a feature that is lacking in PostgreSQL (Coates, 2019). Through this feature, several
transactions can be grouped into the same batch for processing. On the other hand, PostgreSQL
enables business organizations to enjoy the benefits of high performance and enterprise-class
database services which are also cheaper than the Oracle RDBMS. Based on these differences, it
can be concluded that each system is important depending on business requirements.
References
Coates, S. S. (2019). Comparing the performance of open source and proprietary relational
database management systems. Northcentral University.
Prasad Sharma, D. (2016). Performance Metrics for Decision Support in Big Data vs. Traditional
RDBMS Tools & Technologies. IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer
Science and Applications, 7(11).
Singh, P., & Singh, N. (2018). Analysis of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Product in
Web Based Client-Server Architecture. International Journal of Open Source Software
and Processes (IJOSSP), 9(3), 36-47.

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