In September 2001 the Texas Cooperative Extension's EIT department undertook a massive new project to develop an e-Commerce system for the distribution of publications printed by Agricultural Communications. I was hired to build the database and ColdFusion applications needed to make it work. The system needed inventory control, multiple administration areas and the ability to differentiate between the various types of clients that would be accessing it. Above all else, though, the system needed a database that was stable, reliable and could handle the amount of data required. It needed to support triggers for data integrity and be fully compliant with current ANSI SQL 92 standards, and be able to integrate easily with the ColdFusion. Our first choice was Oracle, one of the most well-known and expensive relational databases on the markets. Three weeks later, we were still unable to get even the primary database template up and running on the Slackware Linux server that was housing the database. So other options were investigated and we decided to give the most recent release of PostgreSQL a try. After only two hours, the new database was installed, and the first database template was up and running perfectly. The pricey Oracle solution was uninstalled and permanently replaced with the no-cost open source database, PostgreSQL.

Of all the open-source database solutions, PostgreSQL is the oldest and most advanced. PostgreSQL's rapid development and powerful features have enabled it to begin competing with Oracle, long considered the king of database solutions. Backed by hundreds of dedicated developers, this object-relational database has the most open of licensing structures, giving companies and developers plenty of free reign with how they use the system. PostgreSQL has become the clear leader of open source databases and the only current serious competitor to the proprietary vendor solutions.

PostgreSQL's loyal following, robust nature, and high stability have made it an enterprise-level database system, equal to solutions from Microsoft, Oracle and IBM. Unlike platform-specific closed-sourced systems, PostgreSQL has the high interoperability with current code and data sources needed in any development community. Supporting a wide range of operating systems, both open-source and proprietary, it can be installed on almost any system and accessed with a plethora of development languages. With its latest release, PostgreSQL has reached full ANSI SQL 92 compliance at the entry level, which is a critical element of any database's acceptance by corporations and large organizations. The latest version also included a massive list of new features, bug fixes and performance tweaks, which goes a long way in showing the difference between the time it takes to make advances with PostgreSQL and the turtle speed development of the closed-source community. These fixes have also propelled the database to an enterprise level in terms of quality, performance and feature set. PostgreSQL's latest improvements have blasted away the obstacles that once kept it from being a practical solution on large-scale and e-Commerce projects.

Since installing the PostgreSQL database on our Linux server, we've had no issues with server crash or instability. Currently we have four databases set up on the site, one of which has a table containing over 53000 records! The database has integrated well with our ColdFusion server, with the only issue being the need to have a custom template to add in the PostgreSQL datasources to the CF server.

We can easily administer the database on the server using the built in command line client psql, or through PGAdminII a Windows-based GUI system. We can even pop in through Access for easy moving of data or dumping in multiple records.

I would heavily recommend this database to anyone who wants more features and power than mySQL offers, while still having the ease of use and rapid development times of open-source solutions. PostgreSQL can handle a pretty good load of transactions. It is used to power some big sites on the net, including Developer Network which now runs twelve Linux servers with PostgreSQL as its database. GeoCommunity services its 150,000 monthly visitors with a PostgreSQL database. Ready Set Net, a web hosting company servicing Fortune 5000 companies, recently stated that 98% of its clients use PostgreSQL over their proprietary Windows offerings.

------
Update:
It's now been a little over two years since we chose PostgreSQL as our database. We are now on version 7.4.2 and we are still very happy with the choice. We have twelve databases running, including three for very high traffic sites. Each new release has brought only more great features, including the ability to DROP columns!

We definitely plan on sticking with PostgreSQL in the long run, and have recommended to several other webmasters wanting to get away from high priced databases like Oracle and MS SQL.

In fact, my only complain about PostgreSQL is that in the last two years they have not really done much to improve their documentation methods. For example, in upgrading from 7.4.1 to 7.4.2 there are some bug fixes that have to be solved by either doing backing up your databases, cleaning out and reinitializing the system with init, then importing your dump back in, or you can correct each individual database using some manual instructions. However the discussion of this does not appear in the readme nor in the install files. Neither file even mentions them at all. You have to read the history file to find out about these changes, something I rarely do because the PostgreSQL site spells out the changes made in releases (but it two did not mention these particular bug fixes). There should have been a note somewhere...or better yet that info should have appeared with the upgrade instructions.

Despite the documentation issue, PostgreSQL still wins out over Oracle, MS SQL, and Access for our department and for me!

Note: I made a few modifications to the original review to more accurately reflect the time it was written, but most of the changes are in the cons, the title, and the addition of an Update Section.

Recommended: Yes