What is PostgreSQL used for?

PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system supporting SQL features such as transactions, foreign keys and triggers. It is a good fit for general-purpose application database, and data storage for web and analytics workloads.

Is PostgreSQL open source?

Yes. PostgreSQL is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at postgres/postgres and is written mainly in C.

Yes. PostgreSQL is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host PostgreSQL?

Yes. PostgreSQL can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is PostgreSQL an alternative to?

PostgreSQL is an open-source alternative to Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM Db2 and PlanetScale. Other open-source alternatives to Oracle Database include MySQL and MariaDB.

Is PostgreSQL actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to PostgreSQL was on 2 October 2026. The project has 22k stars on GitHub.

PostgreSQL: open-source alternative to Oracle Database

About PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is a feature-rich object-relational database management system covering a large part of the SQL standard. Its feature set includes transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, and user-defined types and functions, and the distribution also contains C language bindings. This GitHub repository is only a mirror of the official git repository, written in C, and the metadata lists the license as Other.

The project does not use GitHub pull requests; contributors submit patches through the process described on the PostgreSQL wiki. Copyright and license terms are in the COPYRIGHT file, general documentation for each version is published on the project site, and build instructions explain how to compile the server from source. The latest releases of the software and related software are available from the PostgreSQL website. Many hosting providers offer managed PostgreSQL, but the project itself is software you install and operate.

Key features

Object-relational database with SQL support
Transactions and foreign keys
Subqueries and triggers
User-defined types and functions
C language bindings
Documentation for building from source

Good fit for

→General-purpose application database
→Data storage for web and analytics workloads

Built with: C
Tags: database; postgresql; sql; relational; rdbms; open-source; object-relational; transactions

PostgreSQL: questions and answers

What is PostgreSQL used for?: PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system supporting SQL features such as transactions, foreign keys and triggers. It is a good fit for general-purpose application database, and data storage for web and analytics workloads.
Is PostgreSQL open source?: Yes. PostgreSQL is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at postgres/postgres and is written mainly in C.
Is PostgreSQL free?: Yes. PostgreSQL is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host PostgreSQL?: Yes. PostgreSQL can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is PostgreSQL an alternative to?: PostgreSQL is an open-source alternative to Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM Db2 and PlanetScale. Other open-source alternatives to Oracle Database include MySQL and MariaDB.
Is PostgreSQL actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to PostgreSQL was on 2 October 2026. The project has 22k stars on GitHub.