Why do companies still use commercial systems (Oracle, MS SQL Server) rather than open source systems like (MySQL)?

[nelsonic]

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-companies-still-use-commercial-systems-Oracle-MS-SQL-Server-rather-than-open-source-systems-like-MySQL/answer/Garry-Taylor-5

[AnianZ]

I think that answer pretty much nails it. For most companies it's not worth it. Even if an Open Source Project is provided by a third party (like a hosting provider, IT firm, etc.) with additional support. In addition i think that most companies wouldn't "never change a running system" if they don't have to. To many risks of losing time and possibly data. Especially with a database. But i still hope that more companies will use something like postgres for new projects.

[stevehopkinson]

Another reason is that companies have traditionally used those systems in the past – usually through circumstance rather than design – and there are many, many benefits to using the same systems that everyone else is using.

One example: Java completely dominates enterprise software development, but I doubt a single company that uses it would claim that the language itself is better than its competitors. If it was just a matter of picking the best tool for the job in the abstract, then most companies would probably be using a robust modern programming language like F#. But because Java has been the go-to language for enterprise software development for decades, its professional 'ecosystem' dwarfs anything that other languages can offer.

Some advantages to using an industry-standard language or product:

• It is far easier to recruit skilled developers if you use an industry standard. And because there are more developers out there, you can usually afford to pay them a lower salary. (Compare the average Java developer's salary with the average F# developer's salary, for example.)
• Because the rest of the industry works with the same product as you, it's likely that someone else has already created a solution (be that a module or a tool) to your problem. If you use non-standard language or product, you end up building a lot more of your software in-house - which gets very expensive very quickly.
• Industry-standard software, tools and languages also tend to be better equipped to handle standard system integrations. Integrating two non-standard systems is likely to cause far, far more of a headache than integrating two standard ones.

There are broader cultural reasons, too. Commercial systems are just that: commercial. Which means that they're backed by large companies with significant sales teams who spend all of their time trying to convince companies to use their product rather than a free alternative.

[ivannieto]

I can agree with @AnianZ. Tradeoffs of switching their DB systems are really costly when it comes to lose data.

Here I guess most of the companies will prefer to subsist with an obsolete stack of technologies rather than betting on new ones less tested and being more propense to have flaws here and there.

Another point is the economical one. There are billions of trades between companies each day in the world. This could be perfectly another kind of trade.