What is a good free RDBMS solution for a small web project that may grow large if successful? [closed]

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As a C# developer that uses MS SQL Server heavily I'd prefer to use what I know; however, for a small project the licensing costs are prohibitive and so I'm looking at using a free open source solution such as MySQL. Which of the free RDBMS solutions are the best in terms of stability, performance, features and ease of use for someone familiar with MS SQL Server?

RDBMS I'm considering so far are (in alphabetical order):

• Firebird
• Ingres
• Lucid
• MySQL
• PostgreSQL

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I would recommend PostgreSQL over MySQL. I think it's more robust. But it's got more of an Oracle flavor, in my opinion.

UPDATE:

All the suggestions provided to date are relational in nature. There are other alternatives, such as object databases. There's a whole "no SQL" movement out crying in the wilderness for non-relational alternatives. They might be worth a look as well.

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If SQL Server Express is an option, it might be the best choice for you. If not, I'd pick up MySQL or PostgreSQL from your list, they both are good choices. However, MySQL has IMO more user-friendly admin tools (see MySQL GUI Tools) that you may like if you aren't familiar with the command line.

If you are interested by a comparison between MySQL and PostgreSQL, check MySQL vs PostgreSQL from WikiVS, the open comparison website.

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Just an idea ...

Sybase offer a free version of their enterprise product 'ASE' - may be worth a look. It's somewhat hobbled - can only use up to 2G of memory and 5G total of data on disk. Depends just how 'small' your project will be. Given the shared parentage of SQL Server and ASE, it might be worth a look.

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If your experience is with SQL Server, have you considered SQL Server Compact? This is a free, in-process RDBMS compatible with SQL Server that you can link to your app. Performance and features are excellent for applications that do not require multiuser access, and it does not requre an admin install.

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MySQL?

There's no reason to use MySQL over PostgreSQL. Although MySQL seems to have addressed some of the product's worst flaws, they general attitude towards RDBMS' theory makes me very wary of them. And there's certainly lots of things still going against them:

• Awful, terrible documentation
• The fun game of choosing table engines so that you get the functionality you need
• Modifying your data without warnings! Silently dropping data! Silently ignoring constraints!

... and you can go on... The only plus I see towards MySQL is the builtin replication.

There's also SQL Server free editions, no?