[jasonwatkinspdx]

As someone that was kicking around back then, PostgreSQL was seen as more of a proper database, but MySQL was both faster and came with batteries included replication. Those really motivated its mass adoption with LAMP style stacks vs PostgreSQL.

Some years down the road however this was changing. PostgreSQL began to catch up in terms of simple performance, but also MySQL stumbled on transitioning into a multicore world, while PostgreSQL scaled better due to some of the hard work already being done in the architecture. Additionally we got an included replication option, as well as all the main PaaS vendors providing automation around it. So MySQL's previous advantages became less compelling.

And today, hardware is so incredibly capable that just scaling vertically on a single server is totally viable for a ton of apps. For this swath of the market, just running PostgreSQL has become a bit of a no brainer in the way that MySQL was during the peak of LAMP.