PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL
Developer(s)PostgreSQL Global Development Group[2]
Initial release8 July 1996;
28 years ago (1996-07-08)[3]
Stable release
17.2[4] Edit this on Wikidata / 21 November 2024; 4 days ago (21 November 2024)
Repository
Written inC (and C++ for the LLVM dependency)
TypeRDBMS
LicensePostgreSQL License (free and open-source, permissive)[5][6][7]
Websitewww.postgresql.org Edit this on Wikidata
PostgreSQL License[5]
PublisherPostgreSQL Global Development Group
Regents of the University of California
Debian FSG compatibleYes[8][9]
FSF approvedYes[10]
OSI approvedYes[7]
GPL compatibleYes
CopyleftNo
Linking from code with a different licenceYes
Websitepostgresql.org/about/licence

PostgreSQL (/ˌpoʊstɡrɛskjuˈɛl/ POHST-gres-kew-EL)[11][12] also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. PostgreSQL features transactions with atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability (ACID) properties, automatically updatable views, materialized views, triggers, foreign keys, and stored procedures.[13] It is supported on all major operating systems, including Windows, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD, and handles a range of workloads from single machines to data warehouses, data lakes,[14] or web services with many concurrent users.

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group focuses only on developing a database engine and closely related components. This core is, technically, what comprises PostgreSQL itself, but there is an extensive developer community and ecosystem that provides other important feature sets that might, traditionally, be provided by a proprietary software vendor. These include special-purpose database engine features, like those needed to support a geospatial[15] or temporal[16] database or features which emulate other database products.[17][18][19][20] Also available from third parties are a wide variety of user and machine interface features, such as graphical user interfaces[21][22][23] or load balancing and high availability toolsets.[24] The large third-party PostgreSQL support network of people, companies, products, and projects, even though not part of The PostgreSQL Development Group, are essential to the PostgreSQL database engine's adoption and use and make up the PostgreSQL ecosystem writ large.[25]

PostgreSQL was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the Ingres database developed at the University of California, Berkeley.[26][27] In 1996, the project was renamed PostgreSQL to reflect its support for SQL. After a review in 2007, the development team decided to keep the name PostgreSQL and the alias Postgres.[28]

  1. ^ "PostgreSQL". Retrieved September 21, 2019. PostgreSQL: The World's Most Advanced Open Source Relational Database
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference contributors was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference birthday was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Out-of-cycle release scheduled for November 21, 2024". November 21, 2024.
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference about/licence was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference approved by OSI was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference OSI was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ "Debian -- Details of package postgresql in sid". packages.debian.org. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  9. ^ "Licensing:Main". FedoraProject.
  10. ^ "PostgreSQL". fsf.org.
  11. ^ "FAQ: What is PostgreSQL? How is it pronounced? What is Postgres?". PostgreSQL Wiki. PostgreSQL community. Retrieved October 2, 2021.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Audio sample was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference intro-whatis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ "Parquet and Postgres in the Data Lake | Crunchy Data Blog". Crunchy Data. May 3, 2022. Retrieved September 19, 2024.
  15. ^ "PostGIS". postgis.net. December 18, 2023. Retrieved December 18, 2023. PostGIS extends the capabilities of the PostgreSQL relational database by adding support for storing, indexing, and querying geospatial data.
  16. ^ "Temporal Extensions". PostgreSQL Wiki. December 18, 2023. Retrieved December 18, 2023. Postgres can be extended to become a Temporal Database. Such databases track the history of database content over time, automatically retaining said history and allowing it to be altered and queried.
  17. ^ "Orafce - Oracle's compatibility functions and packages". GitHub.com. December 17, 2023. Retrieved December 18, 2023. Functions and operators that emulate a subset of functions and packages from the Oracle RDBMS.
  18. ^ "pg_dbms_job". GitHub.com. November 8, 2023. Retrieved December 18, 2023. PostgreSQL extension to schedules and manages jobs in a job queue similar to Oracle DBMS_JOB package.
  19. ^ "WiltonDB". WiltonDB. 2023. Retrieved December 18, 2023. WiltonDB [is] packaged for Windows. It strives to be usable as a drop-in replacement to Microsoft SQL Server.
  20. ^ "Babelfish for PostgreSQL". babelfishpg.org. Retrieved December 18, 2023. Babelfish for PostgreSQL ... provides the capability for PostgreSQL to understand queries from applications written for Microsoft SQL Server.
  21. ^ "PostgreSQL Clients". wiki.postgresql.org. October 18, 2023. Retrieved December 18, 2023. This page is a partial list of interactive SQL clients (GUI or otherwise) ... that you can type SQL in to and get results from them.
  22. ^ "Design Tools". wiki.postgresql.org. October 23, 2023. Retrieved December 18, 2023. Tools to help with designing a schema, via creating Entity-Relationship diagrams and similar. Most are GUI.
  23. ^ "Community Guide to PostgreSQL GUI Tools". wiki.postgresql.org. December 1, 2023. Retrieved December 18, 2023. This page is a list of miscellaneous utilities that work with Postgres (ex: data loaders, comparators etc.).
  24. ^ "Replication, Clustering, and Connection Pooling". wiki.postgresql.org. July 13, 2020. Retrieved December 18, 2023. There are many approaches available to scale PostgreSQL beyond running on a single server. ... There is no one-size fits all...
  25. ^ This is recognized by the liberal permission to use the PostgreSQL name, as approved (for fair use, when not confusing people about a legal relationship with the actual PostgreSQL project) when used in support of PostgreSQL, subject to the PostgreSQL Trademark Policy: "Trademark Policy". PostgreSQL.org. December 8, 2020. Retrieved December 17, 2023. We will try to work with you to permit uses [of the PostgreSQL name] that support the PostgreSQL project and our Community.
  26. ^ Cite error: The named reference design was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  27. ^ Cite error: The named reference about/history was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  28. ^ Cite error: The named reference Project name was invoked but never defined (see the help page).