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We use MySQL and now mostly Maria. While I agree that PostgeSQL might be technically advantageous in some ways, its ubiquity and the easy availability of many free and paid support options make it a great choice. That said, I think you should examine and explore the possibilities offered by Solr or Elastisearch. Those would likely by my tools of choice for your scenario. Of course, I would probably wrap this in Drupal either way ;) Cary On Friday, April 15, 2016, Adam Constabaris <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hi Matt, > > It's very hard to provide a responsible recommendation without further > details, so this is just going to be a quick overview of *relational > database* options. It might be that some of the other recommendations fit > your needs better. For example, if your users aren't at ease with SQL, > Solr or ElasticSearch might be better.. > > Consider SQLite. It's nearly everywhere (public domain, embedded in tons > of things). There's a Firefox extension that will let you work with it > through the browser if you don't want to do things from the command line. > SQLite isn't a multi user server, it's more a file format. The database is > a single file that you can ship around. You can build a 'self contained' > web application on top of it, which can make deployment much easier. > > As befits its nature, it's a bit loose with data types (e.g. you can insert > strings into numeric column types). But there's a lot to be said in its > favour. > > MySQL (or MariaDB) are reasonable choices, It does a lot of things very > well, and it's very easy to get started with, and lots of documentation. > You will need to pay attention if your data is multilingual and/or > "non-Latin". > > I will second the suggestion to look at PostgreSQL: it's almost as > available as MySQL, and tends to adhere closer to SQL standards than MySQL > (e.g. window functions), and it's fast, and its data storage model makes > for some nice features (e.g. you can update a table's structure while > others are querying it, which is great for availability). It supports > "foreign data wrappers" which let you query other data sources in > PostgresSQL (https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Foreign_data_wrappers) > > It's worth mentioning that recent versions of PostgreSQL have a JSON column > type (and the most recent versions support functions that let you query > inside JSON-valued columns). For some time, it has supported functional > indexes: > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/indexes-expressional.html > > > These two features together mean you can index 'into' a JSON-valued column > to get fast searching over more loosely structured data, so these versions > of PostgreSQL also give you many of the advantages touted for NoSQL systems > while still giving you a standardized query language and traditional ACID > "guarantees." > > HTH, > > AC > > > > On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 2:18 PM, Matt Sherman <[log in to unmask] > <javascript:;>> > wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I am looking to pick the group brain as to what might be the most useful > > database software for a digital project I am collaborating on. We are > > working on converting an annotated bibliography to a searchable database. > > While I have the data in a few structured formats, we need to figure out > > now what to actually put it in so that it can be queried. My default > line > > of thinking is to try a MySQL since it is free and used ubiquitously > > online, but I wanted to see if there were any other database or software > > systems that we should also consider before investing a lot of time in > one > > approach. Any advice and suggestions would be appreciated. > > > > Matt Sherman > > > -- Cary Gordon The Cherry Hill Company http://chillco.com