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Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs PostgreSQL comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure Database for PostgreSQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Database as a Service (DBaaS) (8th)
PostgreSQL
Ranking in Open Source Databases
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Vector Databases (9th)
 

Featured Reviews

Daniel Amini - PeerSpot reviewer
An incredibly powerful industry leader that enabled us to build critical pieces of national infrastructure
Azure Database is simple and easy to use. We followed the prescribed training and upskilled 10 engineers. They think it's straightforward. They've already got PostgreSQL skills to optimize the solution, so they know what to do. It was easy to get started quickly and become effective. My team speaks highly of the platform's observability and monitoring features. It's as efficient as an enterprise needs it to be and. has all of the tooling and telemetry necessary to run an enterprise database. We take security seriously. The team has looked at the security features, and nothing has been flagged to us. My takeaway as a CTO is that they're comfortable with the security posture, the features, the observability, alerts, and now it integrates into the rest of the Azure landscape. The OpenAI integration and extensions have massively simplified integrating AI into a database. PostgreSQL's native vector capabilities are also incredibly powerful.
AdityaSharma3 - PeerSpot reviewer
Transaction processes are fast and good replication capability
Use cases include querying data warehouses and databases to fetch data for clients already working on PostgreSQL.  We also use Postgres for building reports It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping. The query speed is fast, and the…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I rate Azure Database for PostgreSQL 10 out of 10."
"Postgres has helped us innovate and stay competitive."
"PostgresSQL is acknowledged as an incredibly powerful industry leader. We've built critical pieces of national infrastructure in the UK that rely on Postgres. A version of Postgres on Azure that's easy to adopt enables us to innovate. The addition of AI extensions is even more exciting. It's a significant opportunity for us."
"Backups are easy, resizing is quick, and the query analyzers help me find out what's happening in each of the queries."
"Overall, we are satisfied with Microsoft solutions and recommend them."
"Backups are easy, resizing is quick, and the query analyzers help me find out what's happening in each of the queries."
"In terms of integration, we already have SharePoint online, and we're starting to explore PowerApps and PowerFlow. It's all seamless. The ease of integrating SQL and licensing purposes plays a significant role, making it a comfortable choice for the organization."
"I rate Azure Database for PostgreSQL 10 out of 10."
"It's quite scalable."
"It is easy to use."
"The solution is scalable, it is very good."
"It's a useful solution, that can be widely used."
"Postgres has some functions called JSONB aggregators or other aggregators, which are quite useful."
"The initial setup is quick and easy."
"What I like is that it's quite powerful in terms of performance."
"The product is easy to use and works fast for relational databases."
 

Cons

"Support at best is a five out of ten."
"Perhaps a minor improvement could be made in simplifying user additions, allowing for an easier process rather than scripting it out. However, scripting is not a significant issue."
"They can offer more RAG extensions. Currently, it only has the vector search. It does not presently support knowledge graph functionalities as Neo4j does. It also does not offer some tools to improve indexing the way other vector databases offer."
"The critical service is the Azure OpenAI service. It would help to make it simpler and easier to integrate with that or cognitive services."
"The critical service is the Azure OpenAI service. It would help to make it simpler and easier to integrate with that or cognitive services."
"Support can certainly get better."
"Performance is one area that has constraints for our customers. I believe there could be improvements in the mirroring part and Change Data Capture (CDC)."
"Perhaps a minor improvement could be made in simplifying user additions, allowing for an easier process rather than scripting it out. However, scripting is not a significant issue."
"PostgreSQL’s performance could be improved."
"PostgreSQL uses high memory compared to its counterparts when a highly demanding load is involved, especially one that makes many concurrent connections to the database."
"It still needs to be more mature and have some backup feature. We are normally dealing with Oracle's data, and we have very strong online tools to back up the data and do other things. PostgreSQL still needs to do more in this area as well as in the high availability area. There are many external tools that you can use for PostgreSQL's high availability, but there is no embedded tool within PostgreSQL for high availability. It could have a feature similar to Oracle for working on a distributed system. It can have some scripts to improve the monitoring and some tools to do performance analysis. We have a workaround for most of such requirements except for the support for a distributed system, which is very difficult to have. This area should be included in the core of the database itself."
"Sometimes, the views create problems. If you don't have the view, sometimes what happens is you need to have the drivers properly set up for PostgreSQL."
"The pricing could be better."
"They need to improve the user experience of the management."
"PostgreSQL could improve by being more user-friendly. In SQL Server they have a studio where you can easily do management but not in this solution."
"PostgreSQL is a stable system, but from a security point of view, it still needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing experience is positive. Azure Database for PostgreSQL reduces the need for hardware investments, and the pay-as-you-go pricing model positively affects database-related costs by allowing us to start small and scale as needed."
"The pay-as-you-go pricing model plays a critical role in managing database-related costs and resource allocation. We build using Infrastructure as Code (IAC) and maintain a focus on FinOps to control Azure service costs. Some clients are pushy on price. It's critical to automate it, so we're just using it when appropriate and switching it off in certain scenarios."
"There aren't any notable areas for improvement that I could see. PostgreSQL was self-sufficient with no need for additional database knowledge to maintain it."
"We do not pay for a full-year subscription because our usage is still at the beginning phase and not much. The pay-as-you-go model works well for us."
"This solution can offer a cheaper choice for customers since it is open-source."
"The community version of Postgre is basically free."
"The licensing model is good."
"The tool is cheaply priced compared to other RDBMS providers in the market."
"The need for our customers to pay for licences is contingent on their projects and budgets."
"It could be much cheaper. If you would like to build an application on Amazon today, PostgreSQL is the standard database with Redshift. If you want other databases, you can add them, but PostgreSQL is the basis of everything. It's a question of money, that's it."
"It is an open-source platform."
"There is an annual license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
21%
Marketing Services Firm
17%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
Pricing is affordable for us. PostgreSQL is good and affordable for our needs.
What needs improvement with Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
While the flexibility of the server for financial reasons is understandable, better switching between primary and backup would make transitions smoother. I noticed an issue where the primary refuse...
What is your primary use case for Azure Database for PostgreSQL?
We started using Azure Database for PostgreSQL ( /products/azure-database-for-postgresql-reviews ) about five to six years ago. Initially, we were doing an on-premises Kubernetes ( /products/kubern...
How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...
What do you like most about PostgreSQL?
It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?
The tool is free of cost. For now, it's not about making money. But once we perfect it, we can offer it to customers willing to pay for support and other services. Most of my deployments are free.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
1. Apple 2. Cisco 3. Fujitsu 4. Instagram 5. Netflix 6. Red Hat 7. Sony 8. Uber 9. Cisco Systems 10. Skype 11. LinkedIn 12. Etsy 13. Yelp 14. Reddit 15. Dropbox 16. Slack 17. Twitch 18. WhatsApp 19. Snapchat 20. Shazam 21. SoundCloud 22. The New York Times 23. Cisco WebEx 24. Atlassian 25. Cisco Meraki 26. Heroku 27. GitLab 28. Zalando 29. OpenTable 30. Trello 31. Square Enix 32. Bloomberg
Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Database for PostgreSQL vs. PostgreSQL and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.