What is PostgreSQL?

What is PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL is a sophisticated, enterprise-class open-source relational database that helps each SQL (relational) and JSON (non-relational) querying. It is an extremely steady database administration system, backed by greater than 20 years of neighborhood improvement which has contributed to its excessive ranges of resilience, integrity, and correctness. PostgreSQL is used as the first information retailer or information warehouse for a lot of webs, cell, geospatial, and analytics functions.

PostgreSQL has a wealthy historical past for the help of superior information sorts and helps a degree of efficiency optimization that is frequent throughout its business database counterparts, like Oracle and SQL Server. It helps a big a part of the SQL commonplace and gives many fashionable options:

Complicated queries	International keys	Triggers	Updatable views
Transactional integrity	Multiversion concurrency management	Knowledge sorts	Features
Operators	Mixture features	Index strategies	Procedural languages

Benefits of using PostgreSQL

• Rich features and extensions: PostgreSQL possesses robust feature sets including Multi-Version Concurrency Control (MVCC), point in time recovery, granular access controls, tablespaces, asynchronous replication, nested transactions, online/hot backups, a refined query planner/optimizer, and write-ahead logging.
• Reliability: PostgreSQL’s write-ahead logging makes it a highly fault-tolerant database. Its large base of open source contributors lends it a built-in community support network.
• Standards Compliance: PostgreSQL is ACID compliant, and has full support for foreign keys, joins, views, triggers, and stored procedures. It includes most SQL:2008 data types, including INTEGER, NUMERIC, BOOLEAN, CHAR, VARCHAR, DATE, INTERVAL, and TIMESTAMP. It also supports the storage of binary large objects, including pictures, sounds, or videos.
• Open source license: PostgreSQL source code is available under an open-source license, granting you the freedom to use, modify, and implement it as you see fit, at no charge. PostgreSQL carries no licensing cost, which eliminates the risk of over-deployment.
• Community: PostgreSQL is well-supported by its active community. People in the PostgreSQL community also contribute to Planet PostgreSQL & PostgreSQL Wiki. PostgreSQL’s dedicated community of contributors and enthusiasts regularly find bugs and fixes, contributing to the overall security of the database system.

Popular use cases for PostgreSQL

• General-purpose OLTP database: Startups and large enterprises alike use PostgreSQL as the primary data store to support their internet-scale applications, solutions, and products.
• Geospatial database: When used with the PostGIS extension, PostgreSQL supports geographic objects, and can be used as a geospatial data store for location-based services and geographic information systems (GIS).
• Federated hub database: PostgreSQL’s Foreign Data Wrappers and JSON support allow it to link with other data stores – including NoSQL types – and act as a federated hub for polyglot database systems.
• LAPP open source stack: PostgreSQL can run dynamic websites and apps as part of a robust alternative to the LAMP stack. LAPP stands for Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, PHP, Python, and Perl.

The article was published on April 18, 2022 @ 10:03 AM