> The avoid ORDER BY is the main reason not to fall into per-cpu licensing (most commercial data engines). That's the licensing trap they make.

I used to agree with you, but in the cloud, all databases are essentially per-CPU licensing. It's just that instead of paying once up front, you pay by the hour.

That's also why I love database administration as a long term career bet, too. Now, I can go performance tune someone's database queries, and they see an instant reduction in their monthly bill, thereby justifying the DBA cost. If I tune someone's on-premises licensed server, they don't get an instant rebate - the licensing and hardware is a sunk cost.

Sorry but it's not the same. When you use your own hardware you have to scale it to handle the peak usage times. This is often a small fraction of the day.

I don't like putting databases in the cloud, but there you pay closer to actual usage instead of 24x7 at max capacity.

BTW I was thinking in open-source options. Or commercial ones with a less draconian licensing (if there are any left).

> I don't like putting databases in the cloud, but there you pay closer to actual usage instead of 24x7 at max capacity.

Bad news again - with Amazon RDS and Azure SQL DB, you pay a fee based on instance size, and you can't scale up/down instantly with demand. (You can scale automatically, but it takes quite a bit of work - you don't "pay actual usage."