Read about [**Storage Engines**][1].
**MyISAM:**
The [MyISAM][2] storage engine in MySQL.
* Simpler to design and create, thus better for beginners. No worries about the foreign relationships between tables.
* Faster than InnoDB on the whole as a result of the simpler structure thus much less costs of server resources. -- Mostly no longer true.
* Full-text indexing. -- InnoDB has it now
* Especially good for read-intensive (select) tables. -- Mostly no longer true.
* Disk footprint is 2x-3x less than InnoDB's. -- As of Version 5.7, this is perhaps the only real advantage of MyISAM.
**InnoDB:**
The [InnoDB][3] storage engine in MySQL.
* Support for transactions (giving you support for the [ACID][4] property).
* Row-level locking. Having a more fine grained locking-mechanism gives you higher concurrency compared to, for instance, [MyISAM][5].
* Foreign key constraints. Allowing you to let the database ensure the integrity of the state of the database, and the relationships between tables.
* InnoDB is more resistant to table corruption than MyISAM.
* Support for large buffer pool for both data and indexes. MyISAM key buffer is only for indexes.
* MyISAM is stagnant; all future enhancements will be in InnoDB. This was made abundantly clear with the roll out of Version 8.0.
**MyISAM Limitations:**
* No foreign keys and cascading deletes/updates
* No transactional integrity (ACID compliance)
* No rollback abilities
* 4,284,867,296 row limit (2^32) -- This is old _default_. The configurable limit (for many versions) has been 2**56 bytes.
* Maximum of 64 indexes per table
**InnoDB Limitations:**
* No full text indexing (Below-5.6 mysql version)
* Cannot be compressed for fast, read-only (5.5.14 introduced `ROW_FORMAT=COMPRESSED`)
* You cannot repair an InnoDB table
**For brief understanding read below links:**
1. [MySQL Engines: InnoDB vs. MyISAM – A Comparison of Pros and
Cons][6]
2. [MySQL Engines: MyISAM vs. InnoDB][7]
3. [What are the main differences between InnoDB and MyISAM?][8]
4.
[To see links please register here]
5.
[To see links please register here]
6.
[To see links please register here]
[1]:
[To see links please register here]
[2]:
[To see links please register here]
[3]:
[To see links please register here]
[4]:
[To see links please register here]
[5]:
[To see links please register here]
[6]:
[To see links please register here]
[7]:
[To see links please register here]
[8]:
[To see links please register here]