PostgreSQL became one of the most demanded database engines on the planet. There might be several reasons, here are some of them:
👣1. Small resource footprint
When you install PostgreSQL with its default settings it just consumes a few hundred megabytes on disk and 128 MB of memory. This is very tiny when you compare it against other RDBMS (think of Oracle home or SQL server where you need multiple GB and min 1 GB of memory at day 1). On the other hand PostgreSQL daemon can scale and can handle hundreds of GB of memory and multiple TB of database storage.
➕2. Extensibility
One big argument for PostgreSQL is the sheer amount of extension you can install. It completes your instance with additional features like database auditing or vector search, the community can contribute and makes it so powerful. It reminds me on the days pre-Oracle ownership of MySQL. Some extensions:
- pg_stat_statements >> Get more insights of your db
- pgvector >> Make your DB AI ready
- pgaudit >> Turn on database auditing for enterprise business
☁️3. Cloud Agnostic
Nearly at every place you will find this database engine. No matter if it the original binary code or a fork at one of the famous cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP or OCI. Its everywhere and compatible. If you want to move to another cloud with PostgreSQL it becomes easy! Or simply create a VM and install PostgreSQL in it.
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL / Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL
- Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- GCP Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL
- OCI Database with PostgreSQL
➡️4. Variety of Index-types
It is chameleon in terms of indexes! Out of the box it provides a lot of types which are suited for many workloads like OLTP, OLAP or DWH.
- B-tree >> Everybody loves it 😉
- hash >> key-value purpose
- GiST >> Spatial
- GIN >> JSON / Full-text
- BRIN >> Time series
- Bloom >> hash index on steroids
✅5. Robust ACID Compliancy
Do you have a banking application that requires strong atomicity, consistency, isolation and durability? Then PostgreSQL is a good choice — it has been around since the early days and has improved over time.
I’ve just mentioned five big advantages, I am sure you can add some more 😉
