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

[Nathan Widmyer]

Hello,

I was involved in the same sort of decision about 9 months ago.

Generally what we found was that Oracle Spatial supported a basic set
of functions so they can check that features box in sales brochures
saying "yes, we do geospatial stuff", but you have to do it Oracle's
way.
OTOH, PostGIS was much more feature-filled and adheres to standards,
plus has all of the benefits of PostgreSQL, which was a plus for us
for other reasons.  Having PostGIS has opened doors to WMS, WFS and
other OGC services so we can use other services without being locked
into Oracle.

I have used and administered Oracle (I'm not a certified DBA) and it
was quite a handful.  Note I did not use Oracle Spatial at the time,
but I'm speaking in general terms.  Spending about the same time with
PostgreSQL/PostGIS, it's much easier to work with, smaller, and more
agile.

Nate

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 7:15 PM, Bruce Foster <gis.foster at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm in middle of making a decision for a client of mine, where I'm
> inclined to PostGIS.
>
> Now to convince the client, I really need to show the value that out
> weight Oracle Spatial and MS SQL2008. We are not talking cost here, so
> that option is not considered.
>
> I searched for some comparison on net but not much to my delight. So,
> let me ask the user community and I really hope to get some
> interesting facts about PostGIS so I can hold to my thesis with the
> customer.
>
> a. Read somewhere on Topology. Hope someone throw more light on this.
> b. Versioning, which is not available in Postgres
>
> On a related note, can we edit directly on PostGIS using MapInfo,
> ArcGIS Desktop, AutoCad Map3D etc.
>
> uDIG, QGIS allow direct connectivity to PostGIS, hope they allow
> direct file editing too.
>
>
> --
> Thanks
>
> Bruce
> NSW Australia
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