Craig Kerstiens, Chief Product Officer at Crunchy Data and a leading Postgres ambassador, dives deep into the evolution and rising popularity of Postgres. He discusses its unique features that distinguish it from proprietary databases, alongside the burgeoning ecosystem of extensions. Insightful conversations about serverless solutions highlight cost dynamics and challenges, while the innovative use of Postgres with Notion opens new doors for web development. With anecdotes and community dynamics, Craig paints a vibrant picture of Postgres's future.
Postgres's popularity defies industry trends with stability and reliability.
Postgres's evolution from early days to major player shaped by milestones and contributions.
Postgres's extension ecosystem highlights adaptability and potential for growth.
Deep dives
Postgres' Unwavering Popularity and Growth
Postgres continues to grow in popularity and relevance, defying industry trends with its stability and reliability. Despite being considered 'boring,' the database remains a top choice, steadily climbing the ranks on DB engines' popularity list. With notable figures like Nikita from Neon highlighting Postgres' increasing adoption, its appeal transcends its reputation for being dependable and secure, attracting a diverse range of users and developers.
The Evolution and Influence of Postgres
Postgres' evolution from its early days to its current status as a major player in the database landscape is marked by significant milestones and contributions. The database's origins trace back to UC Berkeley, emphasizing extensibility and open-source roots that have shaped its trajectory. Key figures like Joe Hellerstein have delved into Postgres' history, highlighting pivotal moments like its association with Heroku and the decisions that propelled its growth. The database's journey reflects a continuous commitment to innovation and community-driven development.
Postgres' Extension Ecosystem and Future Opportunities
Postgres' extension ecosystem underscores its adaptability and potential for growth. Extensions like PostGIS and Hypo PG showcase the database's capacity for specialized functionalities and performance enhancements. While challenges exist, such as ensuring compatibility and addressing maintenance issues with large-scale extensions, there are ample opportunities for businesses to thrive by leveraging and contributing to Postgres' versatile extension ecosystem. As the database continues to evolve, new extensions and advancements are poised to enhance its capabilities and solidify its position as a leading open-source database solution.
Postgres Updates and Innovations
Postgres continues to evolve with each major release bringing new features and improvements. Extensions are becoming as significant as core Postgres functionalities, offering users more versatility and innovation. Recent updates include features like refreshed materialized views for easier data management, logical replication enhancements allowing selective table replication, and ongoing internal performance optimizations ensuring better speed with each upgrade.
JSON B: The Evolution of Postgres
The introduction of JSON B in Postgres has revolutionized the database's capabilities, allowing for efficient storage, indexing, and retrieval of JSON data. JSON B represents an enhanced version that surpasses the limitations of traditional JSON storage within Postgres. This evolution showcases Postgres's adaptability and competitiveness by embracing modern data formats and functionalities like JSON support, making it a powerful and comprehensive database solution.
This week we’re talking about by Postgres with Craig Kerstiens, Chief Product Officer at Crunchy Data, and a well known ambassador for Postgres. Just Postgres. That’s what this week’s show is about.
Changelog++ members save 2 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!
Sponsors:
Sentry – Working code means happy customers. That’s exactly why teams choose Sentry. From error tracking to performance monitoring, Sentry helps teams see what actually matters, resolve problems quicker, and learn continuously about their applications - from the frontend to the backend. Use the code CHANGELOG and get the team plan free for three months.
Postman – Build APIs together — More than 20 million developers use Postman for building and using APIs. Postman simplifies each step of the API lifecycle and streamlines collaboration so you can create better APIs—faster.
Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs.
