PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is a very capable open-source object-relational database system. It evolved from the Ingres project at the Berkeley University.

We support PostgreSQL directly in all our products! You don't need separate drivers and can immediately connect to your database.

Leader of the Ingres team was Michael Stonebreaker. In 1985 he started a new project called POSTGRES (for post-Ingres), which introduced the ability to define types and fully describe relationships. It could fetch data in related tables using rules, which was a novel concept at the time.

The first version was released to a small number of users in 1989. In 1996, when initial support for the POSTQUEL language was replaced with SQL, POSTGRES changed its name to PostgreSQL to reflect the adoption of SQL as its query language. Since 1997, the software has been maintained by a global community of developers known as The PostgreSQL Global Development Group.

PostgreSQL is extremely feature-rich and comparable to proprietary enterprise databases such as Oracle, SQL Server, and DB2. It uses multi-version concurrency control (MVCC) to avoid locking and provides powerful programming capabilities through PL/pgSQL, which is similar to Oracle’s PL/SQL.

The database also supports external programming languages through extensions, including Perl, Python, and Tcl. More languages continue to be added over time.

In recent years, PostgreSQL introduced the high-performance JSONB datatype, making it a strong competitor to document-oriented databases such as MongoDB.

Many companies use PostgreSQL as a foundation for their own enhanced proprietary database systems.

PostgreSQL has been continuously developed for almost 30 years. It remains a completely free database with enterprise-grade capabilities and reliability. It is widely recommended for production environments and is used internally by many organizations.