PostgreSQL Reviews

PostgreSQL is probably the most SQL-standard-compliant RDBMS on the market. It also goes way beyond standard relational paradigm combining key-value stores, arrays, and columnar stores into a single engine. With the introduction of Foreign Data Wrappers it also enables connecting various different data sources to the database, so it's possible to have, for example, a CSV file-backed foreign tables or to import a MSSQL schema into PostgreSQL.

PostgreSQL allows us to have a single database engine used for OLTP and OLAP workloads, for relational and non-relational data. Its robust and battlefield-proven replication makes us sleep better.

Logical replication would be a major improvement and it's already being worked on. It'll enable true multi-master replication and active-active setups. More OLAP-related performance improvements are also on the way with parallel query processing and parallel background workers being to most significant ones.

v9.5 came out at the end of last year, but I've used previous versions as well. At the moment all the new deployments I'm installing are based on 9.5 since developers are very keen to adopt it and administering it is a breeze.

PostgreSQL is the most advanced open source database in the world and therefore is considered by some to be complicated, but it's not. Deployment is easily done in major GNU/Linux distros.

PostgreSQL is rock-solid-stable, once set up and configured correctly it just continues to work.

There are plenty of clustering solution/ideas that enable horizontal scalability.

PostgreSQL has a very active community and in most cases that's enough of a support. There are a few commercially focused companies, and a lot of freelance consultants [with the writer of this amongst them]. Bugs are always resolved in a timely manner.

If you can type "apt-get install postgresql", you can consider yourself expert in installing PostgreSQL.

While the initial setup is easily done by any member of Ops team, it's important to have a dedicated DBA resource to take care of it. PostgreSQL has superb documentation, it is probably the best documented IT project. We have an in-house team and almost never have to use external consultants. PostgreSQL is very much different from the most popular RDBMS, so it's best to seek a PostgreSQL-focused professional for the in-house team.

I work with few other RDBMSs, but nothing compares to PostgreSQL when it comes to ACID and SQL compliance, stability and the ease of administration.

Get a dedicated, PostgreSQL-focused resource, it's hard to convert DBAs with background in other denominations.

The graphical query plan analyzer in pgAdmin III tool is a very valuable feature. Fast bulk data load and extract feature using COPY is a very useful feature I have used.

Helped solve my problem to extract large amount of data in a specific order on a Greenplum application.

String manipulation functions can be improved. I could not find reverse string function and ended up writing my own. Similarly array functions like length of array etc where not available and we created our own.

I've used it for 4 years now.

PostgreSQL provides the perfect combination of freedom, reliability, stability, security, performance, power, and ease of use. Freedom because it is the only world-class RDBMS not owned by a company. Reliability because anyone looking among the tons of public bugs from other RDBMSs such as Oracle or DB2, and does a comparison with PostgreSQL bugs, will feel confident. PostgreSQL is secured by design, with their own firewall for host-based authentication. PostgreSQL has a superior optimizer, the performance is very good in heavily loaded environments, and it has unique features such as partial indexes and full text search support with GIN indexes. Regarding power, PostgreSQL is a best of breed RDBMS in terms of SQL capability, procedural languages (many of them), programming language and datatypes support (including JSON) and async LISTEN/NOTIFY. Finally, the ease of use or autonomy, is a very valuable factor; PostgreSQL have all the configuration in two single files (postgresql.conf and the "firewall" pg_hba.conf).

We have migrated some databases from Oracle to PostgreSQL lowering licensing fees and reducing the vendor lock-in, gaining sovereignty.

The are many items in my wish list - parallel access (in development), incremental backups, standard MERGE statement (there is a similar INSERT/ON CONFLICT DO), snapshot queries (SELECT AS OF TIMESTAMP), better monitoring stats views, a "trace" feature for a specified running backend, allow streaming replication for a standby from a previous major release in order to minimize downtime during upgrades (this could be difficult with physical standbys, maybe could be easier with logical replication). Of course, everybody needs to keep in mind that any wish list needs to point to the core features, because PostgreSQL is FOSS, and there are other ecosystems out there developing third party features. Here, my wish list for third party software factories is the HTTP->PL/pgSQL adapter, that will enable the development of an Enterprise Web Application Development Framework with just a database (like Oracle APEX).

I've used this solution for more than six years. I started using it in 2009.

Deployment is very easy in PostgreSQL.

Regarding stability, I never viewed runaway processes, nor needed to execute kill or use the Linux IPCRM command against PostgreSQL resources, unlike Oracle and DB2.

It is possible to scale-up (simply adding resources), on demand and without restrictions because PostgreSQL is free. Further, it is possible to realize read scalability with hot standbys.

Very good, based on the few opportunities where I have had to post a problem. I always got an answer quicker in the PostgreSQL forum than opening Oracle SRs or IBM APARs, and the resolutions were also more accurate.

I have more than 10 years of DBA experience, working with Oracle, DB2 and MySQL too. All of them have pluses and minuses, and I usually need to explain that nobody can claim "X is better to Y", at least with the universe limited to world-class RDBMS like PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2 and MySQL. Of course, certain scenarios can mean that one RDBMS is better positioned than another to handle.

The learning curve is much friendlier with PostgreSQL than with Oracle or DB2. In fact, this could be a risk, because heavily loaded production environments usually needs DBA monitoring and intervention.

I did it in-house. The only advice is to read and learn from PostgreSQL documentation and related books or blogs. PostgreSQL is easy to start, but is a complex RDBMS with many screws to adjust.

There is no pricing/licensing at all. Of course, there are many companies offering PostgreSQL support at different costs and some specialized in several languages/countries.

Ask the community. I believe any committed PostgreSQL user will be happy to help and provide advice.

The spatial extension, PostGIS, is amazing and probably the gold standard. I also like the Key-Value column type and the JSON column type. Apart from this, it has all the other features you will need in an RDBMS and then some. It has a vibrant FOSS community with a great license and it has plenty of books and documentation

Rather than using Desktop GIS software we were able to carry out a lot of our spatial operations faster with larger datasets by moving the operations into PostgreSQL. We also save a ton of money on Oracle licenses. Finally, rather than having to give up my relational features, I can use the JSON data type and get everything I want.

They need to work towards making it work better in a cloud environment. Also, I would love to see them developm multi-master replication.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

There have been no performance issues.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

Get a good book so you can get exposed to all the great functionality in PostgreSQL. I would highly recommend looking at the postgresql.conf configuration settings when you are ready to go into production.

It is easy grow it from a small environment to a large one.

We use PostgreSQL as the basic tool for offering our data warehouse and BI solutions. This way my customers have a free tool and I can offer a lower price for our services.

It should have a better native client tool to manage the databases.

I've been using it for nine years.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

There have been no performance issues.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

I've never used it , but this tool has a big community and they are always open to helping.

We had some problems with bigger customers using MySQL so we moved to PostgreSQL.

It's very straightforward if you are using the default configurations. It can become complex when you begin to change these configurations to adapt it to fit your environment.

In-house because we a are a technology company. I always advise to look for a consulting company, sometimes the default configuration is not enough and the tool can become a bottleneck if it isn't properly configured.

My advice is to always begin with the free licenses, and if you see that your tool is becoming a strategic solution, you can look into obtaining professional licenses.

PostgreSQL is a stable RDBMS. It's free, and supports standard SQL.

I have developed many portals and internet commercial sites with this RDBMS. It's easy and quick to publish portals and websites when you have this in production.

I believe that drivers must be better. For example, the .NET drivers could be more robust for the latest Entity Framework version.

I've been using it for two to three years.

There have been no performance issues.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

PostgreSQL is a community RDBMS. There are many articles, blogs, examples and information about its features on the internet.

The initial setup is easy because it's only a package. It can be setup either on the cloud or with hosting providers once it's installed.

I have used GoDaddy hosting, and Amazon EC2 with PostgreSQL. I don't have any problems.

My only cost is for the server that PostgreSQL is hosted on.

I've worked with MySQL, Firebird, etc. and, in my opinion, PostgreSQL is more scalable.

It is a good free RDBMS. It's stable, scalable and reliable.

Overall it is an excellent RDBMS and it is easy to use and administer. In PostgreSQL 9.5 the table inherent Foreign Data Wrappers(FDW) is available. This extension is available for most databases which makes building server federation very possible.

In 9.5 support for FDW was improved which means it is now possible to import a complete foreign schema. Foreign Table inheritance is now supported as well. They have also improved the Foreign Query optimization since v9.4. Lastly, It has low maintenance requirements so not much has to be done as far as DBA tasks go.

We were able to use the latest features described above to facilitate the integration of disperate data sources into our Postgres Data Warehouse.

• Improved support for parallel query execution
• Merge Joins
• Improved Handling of Materialized Views

I've been using it for years.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

There have been no performance issues. It's a very stable environment.

It's been able to scale for our needs and easy to extend when needed.

Although there is no tech support, it has a large user community who are always helping each other.

The last few versions work great out of the box without much config changes. Don't be afraid to try it.

• Hassle-free, low maintenance operation
• Free
• SQL compliance
• Slot-based streaming replication - live and purposely delayed are available
• Robustness
• Performance
• Low maintenance
• Decent Windows management GUI
• Cross-platform

It's improved security by allowing us to switch from an unsecure file-based database to a secure SQL database without license payments. Also, it provides us with multiple disaster recovery options with streaming replication.

It requires better management tools.

I've been using it for 12 years.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

It's been a stable product.

It's been deployed on >180 machines within the organization, ranging from Windows XP to Windows 2012 R2 and Ubuntu v12 to v16, and it's been stable.

Well worth the effort! I've been using it in my professional capacity without a single incident.