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Debian vs PostgreSQL on Ubuntu comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Debian's open-source platform cuts costs by eliminating fees, supporting less powerful hardware, and enhancing efficiency with minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
6.6
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu offers cost savings, efficiency, and easy deployment, making it a preferred choice for enterprises.
There were direct cost savings since Debian has no licensing fees, and we did not require paid support, so it saved us considerable money.
embedded software engineer at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
We were able to save a substantial amount by using Linux instead of Windows and spending a lot of money on Windows licenses.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
I have seen a return on investment; specifically, the cost is around zero because there is no need for a license, and since my whole team uses Debian, we are fine with the number of employees needed.
DevOps Technology Lead at TriStratus Ltd
We cut database infrastructure costs by roughly sixty to seventy percent by moving away from managed databases to using hosted PostgreSQL on Ubuntu VPS instances.
CEO at Grant Corporation
Since there are no upfront licensing fees, the ROI is increased with a scalable system without exponential cost growth.
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
Think about if you are in a different geographic location and your cluster is hosted in two different geographic locations, maybe one in South Pacific and one in Western Europe. In both cases, if write transactions are happening, this is a good way to basically order the transactions so that the eventual data consistency is there.
Specialist Programmer L3 at Infosys
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Debian users mainly utilize community resources for support, with minimal dependence on official channels or third-party services.
Sentiment score
5.7
PostgreSQL customer service on Ubuntu is responsive and often unnecessary due to comprehensive documentation and community resources.
We rely on community resources for support, such as documentation, forums, and asking questions online.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Whenever I had a query, I used Google to search for it and found very helpful information from public platforms.
Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
While it does not have traditional paid customer support like some commercial distributions, the Debian community and documentation are very strong.
embedded software engineer at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu also has some of the most detailed technical documentation in existence.
Agriculturalist/Founder of France Farms at France Farms
Community support is usually helpful in addressing queries and finding solutions to various scenarios.
Director IT at Artizense Hub
When I needed help with my vector search, I contacted them, and they provided substantial assistance.
AI Engineer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Debian is scalable and reliable in cloud environments, offering flexibility and efficient resource management for diverse organizational needs.
Sentiment score
7.0
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu offers robust vertical scalability and efficient complex data handling, though horizontal scaling requires additional effort.
We don't spin up new Debian instances arbitrarily.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
As the growth of our infrastructure is required, we can host many Debian servers.
Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
We decided to use Debian because we needed a more stable and predictable base, especially for long-running systems where frequent changes or upgrades could cause issues.
embedded software engineer at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
Read scaling is supported natively; PostgreSQL enables statement replication, allowing us to spin up read replicas on Ubuntu to distribute read-heavy workloads, which is fantastic.
CEO at Grant Corporation
The scalability of PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is very good because complex joins are performed smoothly and efficiently.
Senior Software Developer at hireHQ
I do not see any limits in scalability for PostgreSQL on Ubuntu; it scales well without constraints.
Director IT at Artizense Hub
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Debian is praised for stability and reliability, though some users note slow updates and older package versions.
Sentiment score
8.3
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is valued for stability, reliability, performance, and seamless integration, crucial for diverse and secure environments.
I rate Debian an eight out of ten because it excels in stability, reliability, and package management, which are very important for long-running production systems.
embedded software engineer at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
That long-term support has helped me and my customers by being stable and running well.
Embedded Developer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
In my experience, Debian is very stable.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
It also guarantees asset compliance; after atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability, it means that even if the power goes out during a transaction, PostgreSQL on Ubuntu ensures that the data is 100 percent saved or rolled back.
Agriculturalist/Founder of France Farms at France Farms
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is quite stable.
Specialist Programmer L3 at Infosys
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is handling my production infrastructures very well and it is going very good.
Manager Dev Ops at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Debian requires improvements in package management, UI, onboarding, release cycle, network management, and better documentation to enhance user experience.
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu needs enhancements in speed, usability, AI integration, and advanced tools for better performance and user experience.
I believe security on Debian is top-notch due to its long history and the many individuals and organizations that rely on it, meaning there are many eyes on it.
Founder at a media company with 1-10 employees
If Debian had a memory-based distribution, similar to Alpine, that would be great, as we could get benefits in terms of memory or embedded systems.
DevOps Technology Lead at TriStratus Ltd
Debian was easy to set up.
Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is very stable in terms of performance and query optimization.
Software Engineer at a university with 501-1,000 employees
Maybe it makes more sense to use AI for configuration in future updates of PostgreSQL on Ubuntu so that the database is automatically optimized for the best performance for a given hardware.
Head of IT at Givo Pvt Ltd
I would also appreciate the ability to use the EXPLAIN ANALYZE tool.
Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Debian is cost-effective due to no licensing fees, making it ideal for enterprises compared to alternatives like Windows.
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu provides a cost-effective, open-source database solution, significantly reducing licensing and operational costs for enterprises.
My experience with Debian's pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that it is all free.
IT Support Manager at a educational organization with 5,001-10,000 employees
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that Debian is free, so there is no price.
Site Reliability Engineer Ii at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
As long as I remain within the limit of that credit, I can create machines as much as I want without exceeding the monthly limit.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
There was no pricing and cost involved in using PostgreSQL on Ubuntu.
Software Engineer at a university with 501-1,000 employees
Now we are running multiple projects on a single Ubuntu VPS with PostgreSQL for around twenty to forty dollars a month total.
CEO at Grant Corporation
Because it is an open source solution, we did not have acquisition or usage costs for this solution.
Analista de Infraestrutura de TI at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

Debian delivers stability, performance, and security with vast support and resources, ideal for enterprise environments and web services.
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is a cost-effective, adaptable open-source database with strong performance, security, and community support.
Debian's stability helps me in my daily work because my work relies on stability; I'm trying to deploy production workloads, and Debian offers that stability for me.
DevOps Technology Lead at TriStratus Ltd
Debian has kept my workflow secure by maintaining system stability with day-to-day or monthly updates with security patches, securing the system from external attacks.
Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Debian has positively impacted my organization primarily in cost-efficiency, with on-premises hardware running faster and cheaper.
IT Support Manager at a educational organization with 5,001-10,000 employees
One of the most important points about PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is that it is free.
Head of IT at Givo Pvt Ltd
Overall, PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is a powerful and reliable database management system; it is easy to use and good for students who want to move beyond basic and industry-level skills.
Database developer at a university with 501-1,000 employees
Any open-source software allows me to look into the code, understand the logic, and mold my code according to it, and it will work perfectly rather than proprietary solutions where I am very much dependent on the vendor and have to wait for their next release to fix things.
Manager Dev Ops at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Debian
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Debian is 6.1%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is 0.9%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Debian6.1%
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu0.9%
Other93.0%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2795433 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Lightweight platform has reduced cloud costs and has kept long‑running web apps reliable
In my opinion, the best features Debian offers include its stability. The stable branch really is stable because once it is configured, I understand you can run it for a very long period of time without needing to reboot or update any of the components. That is really good when you want an application to be extremely stable and not go down, and you are happy using slightly older components. I also value the fact that Debian is open source, so it is free. That is very useful, and it has a big development community that builds it. I understand there are tens of thousands of software libraries which work with Debian from the apt package manager, APT, and also it is very lightweight, which I find to be good as well because that helps with cost savings. Debian's lightweight design benefits my organization because it does not come with bloatware, minimizing RAM usage. Because of that, we can choose cheaper EC2 instances. You do not have to have as powerful RAM, which makes things cheaper, and also because it does not come with all this bloatware, it also makes it faster. So it is very efficient. Debian positively impacts my organization by allowing us to utilize a much more lightweight operating system with Amazon EC2 instances, which greatly reduces costs because we can use EC2 instances with lower RAM. Cost savings are good. Debian is very well known across the industry, so different engineers from different teams know how to use it. Using the APT package manager is a common skill for cloud professionals, which makes it good, especially if you are hiring individuals into the company, because at least you would expect they have some type of background using Debian. I do not know exact measurements, but I would expect we could save at least 10% of costs with EC2 instances just because our memory and CPU requirements would be lower because Debian is lightweight. So it would save cost to some degree.
MG
CEO at Grant Corporation
Consistent use of flexible data and solid transactions has reduced costs and simplified projects
PostgreSQL on Ubuntu could be improved with easier out-of-the-box configuration. The default settings for PostgreSQL on a fresh Ubuntu install are very conservative. Things such as shared buffers and work memory are too low for any real production workloads, and you have to know how to go in and tune it manually. A smart default configuration wizard during installation that detects hardware and suggests settings would save a lot of junior developers from performance headaches. That is important. Built-in connection pooling is another area; PostgreSQL does not handle large numbers of concurrent connections well natively. You end up needing to set up PG Bouncer separately, which is another tool to learn, configure, and maintain. Having a lightweight connection pooler built into the core installation would be a real quality-of-life improvement. Additionally, a better built-in monitoring UI would help. Primarily, if you are working with Ubuntu, you are largely working with PostgreSQL on the command line and installing third-party tools such as pgAdmin or Adminer. A lightweight built-in web dashboard for basic health monitoring would improve projects significantly. Finally, upgrades between major versions and smaller versions should be a lot easier as well. None of these are deal-breakers; they are just nice to have improvements.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
28%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Debian?
The pricing for Debian is based on what is used and how much is used.
What needs improvement with Debian?
Debian currently has some older packages that are not available in the latest version. The stable release cycle is slow, where new features come late. Additionally, Debian is not as beginner-friend...
What is your primary use case for Debian?
Debian is used as a Linux distributor for hosting applications, servers, and deployments. The organization primarily relies on Debian for cloud and DevOps, creating Docker images and Kubernetes nod...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL on Ubuntu?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is that everything is good.
What needs improvement with PostgreSQL on Ubuntu?
I chose a nine out of ten for PostgreSQL on Ubuntu because everything is good, but I need it to be easier to understand and learn. The initial stage is a bit tough, and we do not have adequate sour...
What is your primary use case for PostgreSQL on Ubuntu?
My main use case for PostgreSQL on Ubuntu is to work with the database, so all the fields should be aligned. When we scale the projects, it helps us to do better compared to other software. Postgre...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Debian 12
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Debian vs. PostgreSQL on Ubuntu and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.