Is SQL Server Express good enough for a developer, or should they get Developer edition?

Question

Just wondering if it's worth it for a developer to use SQL Server 2005/2008 Developer Edition instead of the bundled SQL Server Express edition that comes with Visual Studio. I'm talking about for initial development of a website, where you need to create SQL scripts to generate the tables and things like that. I know with Express it's easy to add an .mdf file to your project and program against that, but wouldn't it be better to install Developer edition and program against a "real" database that would mimic what you're going to be using in production? That way if you're using VS Professional and can create a "database project" you can include all of your creation scripts and run them in production to recreate the environment.

Answer 1

Personally, I think your development environment should look like as much as you can to your production environment.

SQL Server Express edition has many limitations like size of database, supports only one processor, etc. It is the "lite" version of SQL Server

SQL Server Developer edition is basically Enterprise edition but it cannot be used for production.

Be aware that if the success of your backend database relies on the use of enterprise features for development, and you want the same features on production, this will require enterprise license.

Answer 2

It depends on what you are doing. In general, I would say it is fine. If you can get a copy of Developer, I would recommend that route, but a great majority of your work can be done in Express.

Express has basic Reporting, with Advanced Services. If you go beyond the basic Reporting in the product, you will have to move up. YOu also have Service Broker. But, you will not have Analysis Services (no data warehousing) or SSIS (no ETL). If you need either of these features, you have to go to Developer.

You will also not have some of the BI features, as the Express Manager is missing many of the bits in the full SQL Management Studio and BI Developer. If you need these, you will need SQL Server Developer.

Answer 3

If it is good enough for production then how can it be insufficient in development. And SQL Express is quite capable of handling fair loads (the kind of loads that would have stressed serious hardware just a few years ago).

SQL Server Express does not require licensing but has a smaller set of features.

Developing against full SQL Server (and Developer Edition matches Enterprise Edition) always leaves the chance that you rely on some feature that is not in the production edition.

At the very least all your testing (including unit testing) should happen against the edition to be used in production.

In this question, since a "full" version is being targeted for production then developer edition should be a good match, just be careful of enterprise features if you will deploy against Standard.

Answer 4

If you have access to it, you're better off using Developer Edition because it supports more features and larger databases. For example, if you want to restore a 50gb database from your production server onto your workstation to do testing, you'll need Developer Edition.

Another example is if you're working with Enterprise-only features like partitioning, compression or the Resource Governor. Those features aren't available in Express, but they are available in Developer Edition.