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Postgres is currently the most advanced RDMS, anyone who's not locked in by Oracle or whatever and doesn't use Postgres for new projects is likely misinformed.

Postgres is currently the most advanced RDMS, anyone who's not locked in by Oracle or whatever and doesn't use Postgres for new projects is likely misinformed. Postgres essentially made every other RDMS obsolete except for some niche circumstantial cases (e.g. vendor lock-in) > enterprise level Postgres is enterprise level (whatever that means). Blazingly fast, Web 3, cloud-native, etc etc, pick your own buzzwords

pjmlp 3y ago
The same applies to those that think Postgres does everything, every single feature, that Oracle, SQL Server, DB 2, and co, are able to deliver, in projects where their license costs are kind of irrelevant in the big context of the organization. Usually, it is a great way for many organizations to have a database as free beer.
- qweqwe14 3y ago
  Sure, a few organizations may actually need some obscure feature that Oracle provides, but again, it's niche. For most companies, Postgres provides way more features than they will ever use. And for the other 1%, it sometimes happens that their need for a specific feature in Oracle DB turns out to be entirely unnecessary. Not to mention that the vast majority of products turn out to be fancy CRUD apps. Doesn't matter though, Oracle will convince you that you NEED their DB regardless.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    There’s one thing Postgres doesn’t provide. It doesn’t provide a supplier who a company can put their liability on. A supplier who can fix the problem in Postgres code and maintain it with authority. But don’t get me wrong. Postgres is an awesome database system.
    - vincnetas 3y ago
      i beg to differ: Professional Services https://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_support/ https://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_support/
      - qweqwe14 3y ago
        SQLite has this as well, although it's use cases are different: https://sqlite.org/com/member.html https://sqlite.org/com/member.html They have multiple tiers of support as well, pretty interesting read
      - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
        Most of these are consultants specialising in hosting and “consulting”. There’s even AWS in there. How much does it cost to be on that list?
    - Jedd 3y ago
      What does 'put their liability on' mean to you? Because I suspect it does not mean what I think you think it means. (Typically the EULA of all those non-Postgres systems are 'this is sold as is, no warranty as to suitability to your purpose, yada yada' Often times people believe that if they're paying many monies for a support contract, that means they can relocate their liability to that company. Almost every time, that company has better lawyers / contract writers.
      - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
        the product is sold as such but there are support contracts to cover everything else
    - marcosdumay 3y ago
      Oh, good luck getting this from any of Oracle, Microsoft or IBM... But actually, you usually can get those for Postgres. Potsgres is the one general purpose DBMS out there that you can hire a company to actually solve your problems.
  - blowski 3y ago
    The main enterprise-necessary feature missing in Postgres compared to Oracle is free trips to the Bahamas.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      I am sure companies selling Postgres support to Fortune 100, can think out of something to please corporate sales team.
  - hosh 3y ago
    I’d argue that, the real value of Postgres isn’t that it has capabilities on par with Oracle, but rather that, it has a thriving plugin ecosystem. If someone needs that obscure Oracle feature, they may have the option of writing it. If there’s something a lot of people are interested in (such as vector features), someone will implement it.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  To a very close approximation, Postgres does do everything. And on the very uncommon cases that you need really something that Postgres doesn't do, Oracle, MS SQL, DB2, and co do not provide enough of a difference, and what you actually need is an specialized DBMS.
ryanjshaw 3y ago
You haven't mentioned support. As much as I'm a fan of Postgres, if my org doesn't have a Postgres support capability, but it does have a MSSQL team, then I'm going to stick with MSSQL. I've got software to write, I don't want to find out that script I copied from stackoverflow to backup the database doesn't work in all the scenarios I thought it would because something changed a minor version ago.
riku_iki 3y ago
> Postgres is enterprise level (whatever that means). Blazingly fast, Web 3, cloud-native, etc etc, pick your own buzzwords it has issues in several choke points: HA setup is complicated, it doesn't utilize multi-core machines well on heavy queries.
Izkata 3y ago
> enterprise level (whatever that means) It means "non-technical executives/managers recognize the name and will approve its use". Like Oracle.
darby_eight 3y ago
[dead]
fuy 3y ago
I love and use Postgres daily for many years, but: Performance monitoring is pretty much absent, all you have is pg_stat_statements and friends. So for any serious scale you need 3d party solution (or you're writing your own) straight away. HA is complicated. Patroni is the best option now, but it's quite far from experience SQL Server or Oracle provide. Optimizer is still quite a bit simpler than in SQL server/Oracle. One big thing that is missing for me is "adaptive" query processing (there's AQP extension, but it's not a part of distribution). Even basic adaptive features help a lot when optimizer is doing stupid things (I'm not gonna bring up query hints here :))

pjmlp 3y ago

The same applies to those that think Postgres does everything, every single feature, that Oracle, SQL Server, DB 2, and co, are able to deliver, in projects where their license costs are kind of irrelevant in the big context of the organization. Usually, it is a great way for many organizations to have a database as free beer.

qweqwe14 3y ago
Sure, a few organizations may actually need some obscure feature that Oracle provides, but again, it's niche. For most companies, Postgres provides way more features than they will ever use. And for the other 1%, it sometimes happens that their need for a specific feature in Oracle DB turns out to be entirely unnecessary. Not to mention that the vast majority of products turn out to be fancy CRUD apps. Doesn't matter though, Oracle will convince you that you NEED their DB regardless.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  There’s one thing Postgres doesn’t provide. It doesn’t provide a supplier who a company can put their liability on. A supplier who can fix the problem in Postgres code and maintain it with authority. But don’t get me wrong. Postgres is an awesome database system.
  - vincnetas 3y ago
    i beg to differ: Professional Services https://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_support/ https://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_support/
    - qweqwe14 3y ago
      SQLite has this as well, although it's use cases are different: https://sqlite.org/com/member.html https://sqlite.org/com/member.html They have multiple tiers of support as well, pretty interesting read
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
      Most of these are consultants specialising in hosting and “consulting”. There’s even AWS in there. How much does it cost to be on that list?
  - Jedd 3y ago
    What does 'put their liability on' mean to you? Because I suspect it does not mean what I think you think it means. (Typically the EULA of all those non-Postgres systems are 'this is sold as is, no warranty as to suitability to your purpose, yada yada' Often times people believe that if they're paying many monies for a support contract, that means they can relocate their liability to that company. Almost every time, that company has better lawyers / contract writers.
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
      the product is sold as such but there are support contracts to cover everything else
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    Oh, good luck getting this from any of Oracle, Microsoft or IBM... But actually, you usually can get those for Postgres. Potsgres is the one general purpose DBMS out there that you can hire a company to actually solve your problems.
- blowski 3y ago
  The main enterprise-necessary feature missing in Postgres compared to Oracle is free trips to the Bahamas.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    I am sure companies selling Postgres support to Fortune 100, can think out of something to please corporate sales team.
- hosh 3y ago
  I’d argue that, the real value of Postgres isn’t that it has capabilities on par with Oracle, but rather that, it has a thriving plugin ecosystem. If someone needs that obscure Oracle feature, they may have the option of writing it. If there’s something a lot of people are interested in (such as vector features), someone will implement it.
marcosdumay 3y ago
To a very close approximation, Postgres does do everything. And on the very uncommon cases that you need really something that Postgres doesn't do, Oracle, MS SQL, DB2, and co do not provide enough of a difference, and what you actually need is an specialized DBMS.

ryanjshaw 3y ago

You haven't mentioned support. As much as I'm a fan of Postgres, if my org doesn't have a Postgres support capability, but it does have a MSSQL team, then I'm going to stick with MSSQL. I've got software to write, I don't want to find out that script I copied from stackoverflow to backup the database doesn't work in all the scenarios I thought it would because something changed a minor version ago.

riku_iki 3y ago

> Postgres is enterprise level (whatever that means). Blazingly fast, Web 3, cloud-native, etc etc, pick your own buzzwords it has issues in several choke points: HA setup is complicated, it doesn't utilize multi-core machines well on heavy queries.

Izkata 3y ago

> enterprise level (whatever that means) It means "non-technical executives/managers recognize the name and will approve its use". Like Oracle.

darby_eight 3y ago

[dead]

fuy 3y ago

I love and use Postgres daily for many years, but: Performance monitoring is pretty much absent, all you have is pg_stat_statements and friends. So for any serious scale you need 3d party solution (or you're writing your own) straight away. HA is complicated. Patroni is the best option now, but it's quite far from experience SQL Server or Oracle provide. Optimizer is still quite a bit simpler than in SQL server/Oracle. One big thing that is missing for me is "adaptive" query processing (there's AQP extension, but it's not a part of distribution). Even basic adaptive features help a lot when optimizer is doing stupid things (I'm not gonna bring up query hints here :))