This site runs on PostgreSQL. Not being a DB man, I don't know how they compare. But I read that Postgre does have some advantages in this kind of application.
If the DPreview code is still on SQL Server (assuming they didn't migrate to Amazon's AWS DB) - then it may have code that is not compatible with PostgreSQL anyway. Also - most likely DPReview.com runs primarily on .NET.
This is from DPreview job ad in 2007:
Primary development language: ASP.NET 2.0 (VBScript)
Primary development tools: Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Dreamweaver, Photoshop
Other languages: Javascript, SQL (SQL Server 2000 & 2005)
Web standards: DHTML, XHTML, CSS, table-free CSS, AJAX
2008:
Primary development language: ASP.NET 2.0 (VBScript)
Primary development tools: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 / 2005, SQL (Server 2005)
2011:
Maintain a solid understanding of site architecture (ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET, ASP, SQL Server, AWS/EC2, HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
I get the impression that's contentions. If we were just using Google AdSense we'd get an income and the ads wouldn't directly affect out editorial stance.
Up to the bank, they need to do their due diligence. So far as the site, it can continue on the present basis for at least a year, but if we want to put in place some plans, we'll need a bank balance.
Dpreview should £^£& or get off the pot. It was closing on an announced date which was weeks ago. Yet it is still open with some we are backing up guff as the reason?
Dpreview died years ago as a forum where we could have serious unbiased free flowing discussion. What would be the point in returning to dpreview? To watch threads get closed deleted or modified at their whims? To get banned for a month for making your point? Their overly sensitive rules? No thankyou sir. This place has been a welcome delight. For the most part no one has really overstepped the mark (except for maybe that time recently someone called someone else a dick) and it doesn't feel like a crèche. I'd say that it is working fairly well, so far.
I really appreciate the different approach of dprevived and so my plan is to stay here and not go back to dpreview, even if it is kept alive... That being said, I'm afraid that most people of the subforum I was (almost exclusively) active in, might stay on dpreview in that case, or perhaps even go to dprforum. After taking an extended (and I'd say open-minded) look at what's the spirit there, I've pretty much decided that I'm not going to register there ever.
So thumbs up for everyone involved in the creation of dprevived - I hope it will be a success and while I doubt I have as much to contribute as a lot of other people here, I'm certainly willing to help out.
Postgresql is a very able enterprise level open source relational database supporting a large number of tools. It is available to cheaply self host on most common platforms, right through to being able to be purchased as a service on a scalable HA managed platform. It integrates well with many server and applications platforms and programming languages.
In my view it is a better technical choice for a web application, which might want to start small and then be trivially scaled up, than SQL-server. Unless you are particularly wedded to a Microsoft stack - which itself will likely impose technical and licensing limitations.