preface

PostgreSQL (or Postgres to its friends) is a general-purpose database management system (or DBMS) that has over 25 years of development behind it and a thriving, active community. We call it “general-purpose” because it is not specialized toward a particular use case. Rather the opposite: the many design choices spanning its long development history have tended to favor balanced behavior so that Postgres can offer equally good performance in many scenarios. This strategy has panned out over time, resulting in an extremely varied user base spanning many application areas, often complemented by specialized extensions.

According to the Stack Overflow 2024 Developer Survey (https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024), PostgreSQL is the most admired and desired database among developers in general, and professional developers in particular, for the second year in a row. It took over the top popularity spot from MySQL the previous year and shows no signs of slowing down. This popularity is a testament to its growing impact and signals that Postgres is a disruptive force that continues to evolve to meet the demands of the modern database market and software development industries.

I had been aware of PostgreSQL as a fully fledged DBMS with a good reputation since the late 1990s and started experimenting with it in the early 2000s. I started using it professionally around 2008 after being prodded by a friend and colleague. I’ve never looked back or used another database system since.