Percona Server vs PostgreSQL comparison

Percona and PostgreSQL are both solutions in the Open Source Databases category. Percona is ranked #17, while PostgreSQL is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4. Percona holds a 1.9% mindshare in OSD, compared to PostgreSQL’s 16.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Percona users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of PostgreSQL users who would recommend it.

Percona Server

Read 2 Percona Server reviews

731 Views
731 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

PostgreSQL

Read 125 PostgreSQL reviews

7,275 Views
6,620 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Percona Server

PostgreSQL

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

PostgreSQL and Percona Server compete in the relational database management system market. PostgreSQL is often favored for its open-source nature and community support, whereas Percona Server stands out for its performance features, making it suitable for demanding applications.

Features: PostgreSQL provides advanced data types, robust architecture, and extensive extensions, making it highly flexible. Percona Server offers enhanced performance optimization, scalability, and high-load environment capabilities. The focus on flexibility for PostgreSQL contrasts with Percona Server's performance-oriented design.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: PostgreSQL benefits from strong community support with comprehensive documentation and resources. In contrast, Percona Server adopts an enterprise-focused deployment model with professional support and services, highlighting its service-oriented approach.

Pricing and ROI: PostgreSQL's open-source nature leads to lower setup costs and improved ROI due to community contributions. Percona Server requires higher initial investment for its professional support but aims to deliver superior performance benefits and ROI in intensive operations.

To learn more, read our detailed Percona Server vs. PostgreSQL Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Percona Server vs. PostgreSQL

September 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Percona Server

Ranking in Open Source Databases

17th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

PostgreSQL

Ranking in Open Source Databases

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

125

Ranking in other categories

Vector Databases (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Open Source Databases category, the mindshare of Percona Server is 1.9%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PostgreSQL is 16.6%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Open Source Databases Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
PostgreSQL	16.6%
Percona Server	1.9%
Other	81.5%

Open Source Databases

Featured Reviews

Umair Hassan

Database Administrator at Systems Limited

Open-source and free to use with a good community

I would love to see the flashback in Percona MySQL or even in Percona PostgreSQL. It's available in Oracle, the flashback. In Oracle, there's the utility of a flashback. It stores all the information in the tables for a few days. That way, if I accidentally delete my records from the table or I need to check the value of a column or row two days back, I can. If Percona had flashback capabilities, it would be ideal. I would love to see training be easier to find. I had some complications finding the training that Percona provides. It is not displayed on the website. For example, if I want to train myself via a Percona expert through virtual files or through recorded videos or something like that, it's really difficult to find any sort of course. You have to email them first, and they will ask you whether it is for yourself or it is for the corporate sector. The course content should just be readily available and not hidden.

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PavithrarajShetty

Software Architect at Tetherfi

Offers simplicity and is cheaply priced

I haven't gone through the scalability aspect since I was using MySQL Server. I haven't worked to a high level in PostgreSQL, but with MySQL Server, I have managed clustering and partitioning. I think I haven't put much focus on PostgreSQL, so I am not sure how it behaves or how it works.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We find the product mostly stable."

"The main value is that it is open source, which means it is free. Our organization has the initiative to go to open source to cut down on cost. Oracle costs us $6 million a year right now, which is killing us, and Postgres costs nothing. So, there is a big push to go to Postgres."

"Clustering will be the number 1 feature. It is also open-source so it is free. It can also be clustered, to allow fault tolerance."

"The system can perform faster analysis by providing it with a lot of memory. Speed is crucial for analytics. Currently, the main reason we haven't adopted Elasticsearch is that we lack the necessary expertise to manage it."

"The built-in code procedural language is the most valuable. It has a built-in layer for code procedures. Its installation is very easy and quick, and it is free. It is also stable, and its performance is also good."

"It's quite scalable."

"The tool is user-friendly."

"The initial setup is quick and easy."

"The solution is open-source and free to use."

Cons

"If Percona had flashback capabilities, it would be ideal."

"There are some products out there that have a slightly different method of implementation for the SQL language. Some of those are slightly better in some areas, and PostgreSQL is slightly better in some areas. I would probably like to match all of those products together. It is just down to the functionality. For example, Oracle has a number of options within SQL that are outside of what you would class as the SQL standard. PostgreSQL misses some of those, but PostgreSQL does other things that are better than what Oracle does. I would like to merge those two products so that there is a certain amount of functionality in a single product."

"PostgreSQL doesn't have a feature for temporal SQL, which is useful for gathering versions of data. This feature should be included in PostgreSQL. This feature is available in MariaDB, SQL Server, Oracle Database, and DB2."

"PostgreSQL is a stable system, but from a security point of view, it still needs improvement."

"When you get a large number of records in a database and start doing various queries, it can adversely impact the performance of the live running systems. That's an area we continue to look at and mean to improve, but it is not only because of PostgreSQL. It is also because of the way the schemas are put together, and certain events are triggered. So, it is because of both parties."

"The database and applications can become very slow."

"Postgres should focus on building a stronger knowledge base. They also need to expand their integration capabilities, so more tools and resources are available to manage it."

"It could be more secure."

"It still needs to be more mature and have some backup feature. We are normally dealing with Oracle's data, and we have very strong online tools to back up the data and do other things. PostgreSQL still needs to do more in this area as well as in the high availability area. There are many external tools that you can use for PostgreSQL's high availability, but there is no embedded tool within PostgreSQL for high availability. It could have a feature similar to Oracle for working on a distributed system. It can have some scripts to improve the monitoring and some tools to do performance analysis. We have a workaround for most of such requirements except for the support for a distributed system, which is very difficult to have. This area should be included in the core of the database itself."

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The community version of Postgre is basically free."

"The need for our customers to pay for licences is contingent on their projects and budgets."

"It is free. There is no license on it."

"It is open-source. If you use it on-premise, it is free. It also has enterprise or commercial versions. If you go for the cloud version, there will be a cost, but it is lower than Oracle or Microsoft."

"Affordable solution."

"This solution can offer a cheaper choice for customers since it is open-source."

"Our company pays for it. There are free versions available, but for advanced features, you obviously have to pay."

"PostgreSQL is open-source, so if capable admins are available then the setup cost can be $0."

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	58
Midsize Enterprise	26
Large Enterprise	45

Questions from the Community

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How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL was designed in a way that provides you with not only a high degree of flexibility but also offers you a cheap and easy-to-use solution. It gives you the ability to redesign and audit yo...

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What do you like most about PostgreSQL?

It's a transactional database, so we use Postgres for most of our reporting. That's where it's helping.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PostgreSQL?

The tool is free of cost. For now, it's not about making money. But once we perfect it, we can offer it to customers willing to pay for support and other services. Most of my deployments are free.

See all answers

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Compared 34% of the time

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Compared 31% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Open Source Databases

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

PostgreSQL

September 2025

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Overview

Percona Server for MySQL is a free, fully compatible, enhanced, open source drop-in replacement for MySQL that provides good performance, scalability and instrumentation. With over 3,000,000 downloads, Percona Server for MySQL's self-tuning algorithms and support for extremely high-performance hardware delivers excellent performance and reliability.

Percona

PostgreSQL is a versatile and reliable database management system commonly used for web development, data analysis, and building scalable databases.

It offers advanced features like indexing, replication, and transaction management. Users appreciate its flexibility, performance, and ability to handle large amounts of data efficiently. Its robustness, scalability, and support for complex queries make it highly valuable.

Additionally, PostgreSQL's extensibility, flexibility, community support, and frequent updates contribute to its ongoing improvement and stability.

PostgreSQL

Sample Customers

Pricefalls Marketplace, Micpoint, Rent the Runway, Transmart, Wattpad, Singular Group, Invoca, 3E

1. Apple 2. Cisco 3. Fujitsu 4. Instagram 5. Netflix 6. Red Hat 7. Sony 8. Uber 9. Cisco Systems 10. Skype 11. LinkedIn 12. Etsy 13. Yelp 14. Reddit 15. Dropbox 16. Slack 17. Twitch 18. WhatsApp 19. Snapchat 20. Shazam 21. SoundCloud 22. The New York Times 23. Cisco WebEx 24. Atlassian 25. Cisco Meraki 26. Heroku 27. GitLab 28. Zalando 29. OpenTable 30. Trello 31. Square Enix 32. Bloomberg

Buyer's Guide

Percona Server vs. PostgreSQL

September 2025

Free Report: Percona Server vs. PostgreSQL

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