{"id":502,"date":"2017-04-19T16:56:52","date_gmt":"2017-04-19T20:56:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arcanoria.com\/games\/?p=502"},"modified":"2017-04-19T20:46:57","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T00:46:57","slug":"arcanoria-revelations-chooses-postgresql-rdbms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arcanoria.com\/games\/2017\/04\/19\/arcanoria-revelations-chooses-postgresql-rdbms\/","title":{"rendered":"Arcanoria Revelations Chooses PostgreSQL RDBMS"},"content":{"rendered":"

After careful consideration, and quite a bit of testing and experimentation, we’ve decided to go with a RDBMS, specifically PostgreSQL<\/a>, as our central database server engine for our upcoming game title, Arcanoria Revelations<\/a>. This blog post recaps\u00a0some of the issues we considered in making this decision. We hope that our research will be of interest to other developers.<\/p>\n

Choosing a Database Model: Relational\u00a0vs.\u00a0Document Stores<\/h2>\n

When selecting a database engine for your application, you’ll first need to consider what type of data modeling\u00a0you’ll need. Two of the most popular choices in recent years are RDBMS (relational) and NoSQL (document stores).<\/p>\n

RDBMSs (Relational DataBase Management Systems) are the traditional “standard” structured type of database. They use indexed tables to store data, and your application can “query” that data using a Structured Query Language (SQL). SQL queries are used to add, retrieve, or modify the data in those tables, as well as the tables and indices themselves. Examples of popular RDBMSs include PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, Microsoft SQL Server (MS-SQL), Oracle, etc.\u00a0For applications that have highly structured data, it’s usually best to choose a RDBMS.<\/p>\n

If you prefer to work in a more ad-hoc way with your data, without so many pesky rules about data types or required values, you may want to consider a free-form, document-store, NoSQL solution, like MongoDB, LiteDB, or others. Here is some background information about\u00a0Document Stores<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Making this choice means thinking about the kinds of data you need to manage. Is it easy to think of your data in tables or spreadsheet format, or is it less structured? Here are some insights on your choice:\u00a0http:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/rdbms-vs-nosql-how-do-you-pick\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you decide to use a NoSQL document store then the remainder of this blog post\u00a0will not apply to you. However, if you’ve chosen to use a RDBMS to hold your data (as I have), then please read on!<\/p>\n

Indie Game Developer’s Perspective<\/h2>\n

As an Indie game developer, I’m\u00a0on a very low budget. I need to economize wherever I\u00a0can, but at the same time, I\u00a0also want to be able to find support when I need it. That means choosing tools that are popular and have large community adoption. This is one of the reasons why we’ve chosen Unity for our game development engine. Choosing the best RDBMS for our project is no different.<\/p>\n

Given our low budget, we can pretty much rule out the more expensive options like Oracle and MS-SQL. SQLite offers free licensing, but it’s probably not your best choice for a multi-user application (see the SQLite section below for more details). That leaves us looking at the two most popular remaining choices: PostgreSQL and MySQL.<\/p>\n

PostgreSQL vs. MySQL – Major Similarities and Differences:<\/h2>\n

Tools<\/h3>\n

Both PostgreSQL<\/strong> and MySQL<\/strong> have excellent management tools, including free and paid ones – https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Comparison_of_database_tools<\/a><\/p>\n

Adoption<\/h3>\n

Both are used by many large companies and projects –\u00a0https:\/\/db-engines.com\/en\/ranking<\/a><\/p>\n

Licensing<\/h3>\n