"I could probably do both with MySQL, but only with much more effort."
I know you could. You know you could. Most of the people here know you could.
But your boss doesn't want to bet on you. That would require him to manage you. Easier to spend a bunch of money through a capital expenditure request to get a piece of commercial software that already does it. When your boss(es) don't get the job done, it's easier to blame a vendor than an employee.
Or maybe said boss would spend less just buying software than paying an employee to duplicate an maintain the functionality. For a large enough company, one software license is not that big of an expense.
I know you could. You know you could. Most of the people here know you could.
But your boss doesn't want to bet on you. That would require him to manage you. Easier to spend a bunch of money through a capital expenditure request to get a piece of commercial software that already does it. When your boss(es) don't get the job done, it's easier to blame a vendor than an employee.