Report

Should I Use PostgreSQL?

postgresql.org·Analyzed 1 hour ago·Based on 13 sources

The official site for PostgreSQL, the world's most advanced open source database

Worth it

Buy if your team can write SQL and own database operations — it is free, powerful, and proven at massive scale.

Free, powerful open source database. Great for technical teams; overkill if you just need a spreadsheet or contact list.

Confidence: High

4.4/5

G2 rating

682 reviews

Starting price

Open source license

Yes

Free tier

Full engine, self-hosted

227,721

Adoption

Companies tracked using Postgres

Value for money

Free to use, no license fees

Ease of use

Guess: developer-friendly, steep for non-technical users

Feature depth

Marketed as most advanced open source database

Support quality

Guess: community support; paid via EDB, Percona

Security posture

CVEs disclosed and patched quickly

Pros

Free to use with no licensing fees^¹
Reviewers call it robust and powerful^⁴
Scales to millions of users — Instagram runs on it¹⁰
Huge adoption: 227,721 companies tracked using it^⁹
Deep managed-hosting ecosystem across AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean

Cons

No official vendor support; paid help via third parties like EDB
You must track and apply security patches yourself
Misconfiguration can compromise the database; hardening is your job
Key ecosystem tools like pgBackRest face open-source funding shortfalls¹³
Real costs hide in hosting and operations, not licensing

Gotchas

highCVE-2025-1094 saw real-world exploitation; patching discipline is mandatory.
mediumFree software, but total cost is hosting, ops staff, and optional paid support (EDB, Percona).^⁸
mediumDigitalOcean customers report continued billing after deleting Postgres databases.
mediumMigrating from Oracle can save ~90% in licensing, but migration itself is complex.

Best for

Engineering teams with SQL skills
High-growth apps needing serious scale
Companies fleeing Oracle license costs
Cost-conscious startups

Not for

Non-technical teams that just need a shared spreadsheet
Solo users tracking contacts or small lists
Companies with no DBA and no managed-hosting budget
Buyers expecting vendor SLA support out of the box

Companies that use it

Instagram¹⁰
Vanten Inc.

Pricing

Self-hosted

Full-featured open source engine
Community support only

Managed cloud

from ~$14/mo

Azure Flexible Server entry tier
AWS RDS and DigitalOcean options
Vendor handles ops and backups

Security

Mature and actively patched — but 2025–2026 brought real CVEs, including one exploited in the wild.

CVE-2025-1094 — psql SQL injectionHigh-severity injection fixed by vendor; publicly exploited.^⁵
CVE-2026-2006 — remote code executionRCE vulnerability tracked in PostgreSQL.^⁷
CVE-2026-2003 — information disclosureInformation disclosure flaw tracked in PostgreSQL.