Question

what are the difference between InnoDB and MyISAM.
Which one I can go for?
any areas where one provides and other doesnot provide?
IS there any technological limitations in any of the both types?
Please help me to choose the right type for my project?

Answer 1

There are several differences, but the most important I can think about are :

• InnoDB is a transactionnal engine — i.e. it supports transactions
• InnoDB supports foreign keys
• MyISAM only does lock at the table level — InnoDB does locks at the row level

The wikipedia entry on InnoDB lists a couple if differences — some of which I didn’t spoke about 😉

And you could be interested by the Chapter 13. Storage Engines section of the MySQL manual, which is probably not a bad reference, when it comes to InnoDB and MyISAM.

Especially, I’d say :

• 13.5. The MyISAM Storage Engine
• 13.6. The InnoDB Storage Engine
• and 13.1. Comparing Transaction and Nontransaction Engines