is mysql capable of managing the data for a site which holds lots of data

is mysql capable of managing the data for a site which holds lots of data (say with hundreds of millions of开发者_如何学Go users)? which database would be the most capable/beneficial?

---

Wikipedia is based on MySQL. I don't think it has 100M users, but it must be close by now.

---

No database will handle hundreds of millions of users unless you know how to set it up properly. No single server could handle that kind of traffic, so you need to know how to setup replication and load balancing. Once you reach a certain level, there is no out of the box solution, only tools you can use. MySQL being a very capable tool.

---

There are a couple of answers to this.

Yes, MySQL can store hundreds of millions of records; you need to know what you're doing, have a decent database schema, pretty robust hardware, but you're not pushing the limits.

When you talk about "hundreds of millions of users", you're talking about a site along the lines of Wikipedia/Facebook/Google/Amazon in scale. You need a custom, highly cached, distributed architecture to run a site at that scale - and the traditional database driven application architecture will almost certainly not be enough. You could still store your data in MySQL, but you'd need a whole bunch of additional components to make it all work - and without knowing more about the application, nobody could tell you what that might be. At that scale, none of the commonly used databases would suffice, so MySQL is no better or worse than any of the other options...

---

Your question is really irrelevant, because creating a product or service that hundreds of millions of customers actually want is a much bigger and more difficult challenge than choosing a database engine.

If you're starting a business from nothing, pick a technical platform you already know and go with it: productivity and quick implementation will be more important than being scalable to a level you may never reach anyway.

If you do eventually become successful enough to have to deal with hundreds of millions of customers, then you'll certainly be able to raise the cash to buy whatever expertise and hardware you need.