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List of software that has free tiers for developers (free-for.dev)
235 points by seanwilson on Oct 18, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 24 comments


One obvious thing that's missing here is Microsoft's SQL Server. Solid piece of software and associated tooling that has a free "Developer Edition", a full-featured version for developer use!


Why would anybody use that if we can just apt install postgresql?


Perhaps Because there is more to using a dB than just installing it Like tooling integration existing skills


Is how it installs really the most important thing about a database?


SQL Server has some interesting features. It has a much better alternative to pgadmin. You can write stored procs in C#. I would use postgres for most tasks but there are things unique to SQL Server.


You can write postgres functions in c, python, tcl, and perl. https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/xplang.html


And Rust (warning self-promotion) https://github.com/bluejekyll/pg-extend-rs


> You can write stored procs in C#.

It just occurred to me that Rust might be a really good fit for user defined functions in MySQL. I would never want to write in C or C++ myself, but with a nice crate that abstracts away and/or provides most the structures you might need to pass back and forth, I would be much more confident that if I got it compiling in Rust that it probably wouldn't blow up my database.

I mean, I think that's one of the major benefits of using C# over C or C++. You're not likely to segfault or buffer overflow, etc.


Is there a database where you can write stored procedures in C or C++? Usually such languages can't segfault or buffer overflow.


User defined functions[1] in MySQL are dynamic libraries which are loaded and then you attach a function name to. A common example might be a hashing function that you want the DB to understand.[2]

That said, I bet just about every database supports something similar (and postgres' equivalent has already been provided by a sibling comment).

1: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/create-function-udf....

2: https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-server/LATEST/management...


Is there a database where you can write stored procedures in C or C++?

Most of them. SQL-like languages like Oracle's PL/SQL are preferred, not because of any security problems but simply because it's much easier, specially when working with data sets.



Possibly because MSSQL is 'better', or was. MS could pump almost unlimited money into its optimiser. Posgres doesn't have that and I've been informed a few years ago postgres wasn't as good. Maybe it's caught up now; I don't know as I've no experience with it.


Sigh. The usual downvotes because... why, you can pick holes in what I said, or some people's identity is so tied up with a piece of open-source software that they can't tolerate apparent criticism of it?

Fact: the optimiser in an SQL engine is almost the quintessence of it. If you don't understand that then you don't understand that the potential cost of the declarative nature of SQL.

Fact: SQL optimisers are complex.

New fact: microsoft has pumped fantastic amounts of cash into MSSQL. Posgres just doesn't have those resources (and other resources, such as the late lamented Jim Gray).

Other fact. Postgres CTEs were an optimisation barrier until PG11 or PG12 (https://www.depesz.com/2019/02/19/waiting-for-postgresql-12-...). AFAIK MSSQL's CTEs have never been an optimisation barrier, and I've used them long enough to know. I'm also trying to understand the cost of MVCC, which PG uses but MSSQL now has as an option, to try and understand where that costs, because depending on the scenario, it will. PG does not have READ UNCOMMITTED.

Fact: The guy I quoted had used postgres on large data a while back and said it wasn't as good as MSSQL. He had experience, which is the bottom line. I also acknowledged this may have changed recently.

Other fact: I don't dislike postgres and recently have decided learn PG also, because, for very good reason, MSSQL has its problems (the ridiculous cost not being the only one).

Fact: If you just downvote me without explaining why, neither of us can learn anything.


> Fact: If you just downvote me without explaining why, neither of us can learn anything.

Didn't downvote you but your first comment I found vacuous. "Possibly", "could pump", "I was informed...I've no experience of it".

Your second comment then asserts things which may very well be true, but would be more believable with some references.


Thank you for a helpful comment. I can see the initial comment wasn't sufficient now you've explained how it looks to you.

The 2nd post is harder to justify in a way. Some of it comes from experience, and understanding the behaviour of a merge join vs a loop join for example, and how much slower the latter can be if applied wrongly, which points to why the optimiser is so vital.

Edit: there's also the cardinality estimation (which can so easily go wrong), the dynamic programming for joins and the combinatorial explosion when it comes to ordering/reordering of inner joins, heuristic costs of using indexes vs not, etc.

Some of it was hearsay, but I stated it as such. Anyway, point taken, and thanks again.


For developer use, sure. But if you want to do anything commercial at all, you start to shell out ma$$ively.

The express (free version) may work for you but it's diversely crippled.


I have my own domain for my personal use so that I am not beholden to a random service.

Why would I ever lock business critical data up in a database so that I would be beholden to one company, when perfectly free databases exists, that are in some ways even better?


Posted yesterday [1] with 129 points and 10 comments.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21283861


Are there any open sourced attempts at (ab)using all of these at once with some multicloud wrapper interface?


Maybe this? https://yunohost.org/

Although a bit limited at the moment as it doesn't support every app.


Is there any way to get Slack to provide open source projects with an upgraded account? I have been unable to convince one of my projects to move to something else, but we are at the point where we get less than a month of history on Slack's free account.


Try to convince them to use Zulip? zulipchat.com offers free hosting both at a level resembling Slack's free tier and at a higher tier that's free for open source projects, or you can host it yourself or have some else do that since the software itself is free and open source.


Check out Mattermost Team edition[1], it's easy to set up blazing fast when properly self-hosted.

[1]https://mattermost.com/download/




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