[postgis-users] PostGIS vs Oracle Spatial/MS SQL2008

[Paul Ramsey]

Oracle's wonderfully featureful, but if you're not already an Oracle
shop, you'd be foolish to bring it in. It's difficult to learn and
administer, which is why "Oracle DBA" is such a great job title to
hold (job security!)

SQL Server is more lightweight, but it naturally ties you into the
Windows platform, if you want to deploy on some other operating
system... tough. Many administrators love it, some hate it. The
spatial support is also pretty new, which means support for it is
still building. However, it is Microsoft, so it'll only get stronger
over time.

PostGIS is easy to install and easy to use, it has a clear simple
syntax, it's been around a long time, is stable and very fast.

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Bruce Foster <gis.foster at gmail.com> wrote:
> a. Read somewhere on Topology. Hope someone throw more light on this.

Some basic topology support, but nothing to write home about, and more
importantly there are no client tools that support it. Topology is a
sexy slow dance between the underlying data model and the user-facing
application that exposes the model, and the difficult part is on the
user-facing side. This is why ESRI's topology stuff remains
more-or-less the only stuff in use -- because they nailed the
user-facing side.

> b. Versioning, which is not available in Postgres

You can build versioned tables easily enough with some simple rules
and triggers. Again, the question is what user-facing application you
are planning to use and what your use case is going to be.

> On a related note, can we edit directly on PostGIS using MapInfo,

Yes

> ArcGIS Desktop,

Yes, with zigGIS. Yes also with ArcGIS Server underneath, but ... ouch.

> AutoCad Map3D etc.

Yes'ish, the FDO support for PostGIS is still limited and apparently
this is finicky at best.

> uDIG, QGIS allow direct connectivity to PostGIS, hope they allow
> direct file editing too.

Yes, they do. As does gvSIG, and I think MapWindow.

Also web-based tricks, like WFS editing through openlayers and
geoserver. Or through openlayers and featureserver. Or through geoext
and mapfish.

Best,

Paul



>
> --
> Thanks
>
> Bruce
> NSW Australia
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