PostgreSQL

I have worked, for 46 years, across multiple industries, charities and public sector organisations using multiple database products. One of the largest databases was recording car movements, received from a tracker every 5 seconds, we had over 2 billion rows in the biggest table and this increased for several more years after I moved on. Our working database was PostgreSQL and the operational system was Netezza, which was built on the PostgreSQL code. We used the geospatial functions to analyse car journeys.The business problems addressed by PostgreSQL include: reliability, performance, productivity, cost, scalability and interoperability across operating systems. PostgreSQL scores highly in all these areas.

• PostgreSQL is free, so there is no up-front, or ongoing, software cost.
• PostgreSQL is very efficient in its use of hardware resources. In a recent project the annual cost of hardware to support a PostgreSQL database was about £1,000 per year. In a Microsoft Dataverse, containing exactly the same data, the annual cost for disk usage alone was £100,000. This is not a typo; the Microsoft system cost 100 times as much for disk space as the PostgreSQL system.
• Because PostgresSQL follows the standards very well, and has good, sensibly indexed, documentation, and provides helpful error messages, our developers ran into fewer problems, and were able to solve problems more quickly.
• With PostgreSQL, we delivered more at much lower cost.

Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, Db2, MariaDB Platform, MySQL, SQLite, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE), SAP IQ, MongoDB, Apache Cassandra, Microsoft Access, NuoDB and Apache Hadoop

Oracle Java SE, Apache Subversion, Cypress.io, DBeaver, LibreOffice, GIMP, Docker, Ubuntu, Crescendo

In my team, we primarily use PostgreSQL as a relational database for standard use cases, where we for example have some information that we want to keep track of but not having everything in a single table, choosing instead to build several relations between the tables. The other use case we have, which is the primary one, is the basis for our Airflow instances - this is something set up by default by Airflow but for us it is sometimes necessary to extract information from this DB for further processing.

• 0% incidents due to maintenance - the only time was actually caused by an upgrade of two major versions we did
• When correctly used, the difference in query performance became 100 times faster (simply due to using indexes and PostgreSQL specific functions)

MySQL

Apache Airflow, Apache Spark, Amazon DynamoDB

Our organization hosts a DMS system that needs a database to save configurations/passwords/etc. As we offer a cloud solution, it was clear we need a managed DB and PostgresSQL fitted that use case. Also because, instead of something self hosted, it offers a reliable managed backup, autoscaling and much more.

And of course, the Open Source aspects is a strong point, because it allows you to reduce the migration sorrows, if we would be force to switch to a different Hyper Scaler or want to use multi cloud.

• Other than a self-hosted PostgreSQL, the managed service reduces the time to be spend with manage a DB to nearly zero
• Same that a backup service is already in place and you even can use point in time recovery, gives you a lot of flexibility
• Nothing is for free, so if the offered features are not needed (e.g. test/dev systems) this might be too expensive
• As already said, the flexibility of a open source allows you to use it across hyper scalers

Microsoft SQL Server

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, IBM Cloud Object Storage, IBM Cloud Block Storage, Azure Blob Storage

We are using a PostgreSQL database for multiple Java-based applications. Due to its ease of installation and maintenance, it's been our first choice. PostgreSQL database is an open source DB that has helped us in saving licensing costs. Due to its flexibility for customization, our developers can use it for specific business needs.

• Saved a lot in licensing cost.
• Easy to deploy and maintain, thus saving on human resources.
• Support almost all types of applications, which makes it possible to have a unique database selection across the organization.

Oracle Database, SQLite and MariaDB Platform

MariaDB Platform, SQLite, Oracle DaaS

We use PostgreSQL as Storage for our BMC SaaS Solution. There are some performance challenges that we have to analyze from time to time. As we migrated from MSSQL, the used procedures differed, and we had to adapt our solution. However, we found a replacement for all our requirements.

• I believe it was positive in costs perspective.
• Another positive, probably less maintenance work.

Microsoft SQL Server

BMC Helix ITSM, BMC Helix Digital Workplace, DBeaver