title: Which is faster — INSTR or LIKE?
body: <p>If your goal is to test if a string exists in a MySQL column (of type 'varchar', 'text', 'blob', etc) which of the following is faster / more efficient / better to use, and why?</p>
  
  <p>Or, is there some other method that tops either of these?</p>
  
  <pre><code>INSTR( columnname, 'mystring' ) &gt; 0
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>vs</p>
  
  <pre><code>columnname LIKE '%mystring%'
  </code></pre>