PG Distribution
PostgreSQL is eating the database world, and it is becoming the Linux kernel of the database world.
But where are the distributions?
What is Distribution?
Nowadays, people use OS distributions like Ubuntu, Debian, and RHEL, rather than the raw Linux kernel directly. You’ll need a lot of components to build a practical operating system, such as systemd, cron, NTP, DNS, logging, …, to make the raw Linux kernel usable.
The linux kernel is several MB in size, but a full OS DVD can easily take up 10+GB, including all the necessary parts and software packages. That’s what a PostgreSQL Distribution is all about —— Gives you everything to build a production-grade Database Service.
Why do we need Distribution?
We have two things to forge a powerful PostgreSQL distribution: Extensions and Services.
Extensions
There are 1000+ extensions in the PostgreSQL ecosystem. But only 100 of them are accessible via the “Official” PGDG Repositories.
So we packed the most popular and useful extensions into pre-made RPM/DEB packages for 10 linux distributions and 5 PG Major version. Now there are unparalleled 422 extensions available out-of-the-box, and we will continue to add more extensions in the future.
What’s more, we even have support for 8 flavors of PostgreSQL kernels (ext, fork, wrapper, etc.), including:
| Kernel | Key Feature | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Citus | Horizontal Scaling | Native Distributive PostgreSQL |
| WiltonDB | SQL Server Migration | SQL Server wire-compatibility |
| IvorySQL | Oracle Migration | Oracle Grammar and PL/SQL compatible |
| OpenHalo | MySQL Migration | MySQL wire-protocol compatibility |
| FerretDB | MongoDB Migration | MongoDB wire-protocol compatibility |
| OrioleDB | OLTP Optimization | Zheap, No bloat, S3 Storage |
| PolarDB PG | Aurora flavor RAC | RAC, China domestic compliance |
| Supabase | Backend as Service | BaaS based on PostgreSQL, Firebase alternative |
| Greenplum | Analytics/DW | Massively parallel processing database warehouse |
Services
You can get started with raw PostgreSQL kernel easily like systemctl start postgresql, but it’s far away from production grade service.
That’s the main reason why people pay 160 $ / vCPU·Month for a managed PostgreSQL service like AWS RDS.
But what if you can just build an enterprise-grade PostgreSQL service on your own, with a few commands, and no license fees? Pigsty enables you to do that. It gives you HA PostgreSQL clusters with PITR, Monitoring & Alerting, Connection Pooling, along with