PostgreSQL Initial Setup
Chethan Rao S
Software Engineer at Medflix
We use managed database. Since our Tech team is small, consisting of only four people, we have to work on mobile applications, web applications, and the backend. We have to save some developers' time. We usually choose to use managed database services. Managed services are quite easy as they allow us to set up the databases with just a few clicks quickly.
View full review »
Ahmed-Ramy
CEO at TMentors
The setup has a medium amount of difficulty. It's not overly difficult.
View full review »
Moises Nájar
Executive Director at Extware Consulting
The initial setup of PostgreSQL was very simple. I am using Ubuntu and you only have to go to the synaptic and download the package and it's already stable. It can be down in a matter of minutes, it's wonderful.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
PostgreSQL
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about PostgreSQL. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.
RK
reviewer2097999
Geologist at a government with 10,001+ employees
The initial setup was straightforward.
View full review »SE
Saman Raf
Software developer at MTNIrancell
The initial setup process is easy. It takes about ten minutes to compete.
View full review »NP
reviewer1599825
System Architect at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
So back in late August, the developers released PostgreSQL 14, the most feature-rich deployment to date. And they did a reasonably decent write-up about the new and unique features. What I found most interesting is that you can use a straight-up Windows installer for the PostgreSQL database. And it includes all the components of the stack you need, so you don't necessarily need to know how to install its different parts. For example, suppose you're going to install it for Solaris, BSD, or Linux. So when you're installing in those three environments, it's usually packaged and requires secondary packages. And some of these packages are version dependent, so it can get complicated pretty quickly. If you are curious about how PostgreSQL databases run, I suggest you try it out on Windows first.
View full review »PB
reviewer1161609
System Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
I have no experience with the deployment of this solution.
View full review »
Hazel P.
Data Quality Engineer at Nidec Corporation
We faced no difficulty in installing PostgreSQL.
View full review »
Ashif Shaikh
Senior Database Administrator at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
It's very simple to set up.
View full review »DE
reviewer1089354
System/Security Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
It was very straightforward and easy. It is very well documented.
We can deploy a server in about three or four hours. We use a primary and a standby server, so we have two servers in the cluster.
View full review »
it_user442602
Sr. Database Engineer at a non-tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Postgres will work straight out of the box on most platforms. However like all of the database vendors in the Unix space, the ability to modify the configurations are extensive. The degree of complexity is less than Oracle or Sybase but certainly more complex than something like SQL Server. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you must understand how your operating system handles memory. The most complex part of the Postgres installation is, by far, security. I would recommend getting help before tackling the HBA configuration file.
View full review »AM
Ariful Mondal
Global Data Architecture and Data Science Director at FH
Its installation is simple and easy. If it is in the cloud, you have to go for a subscription. On a desktop, you can install it with normal Unix commands.
I have not done full server version installation myself. If we go for Azure Cloud, its API is available. It takes five minutes to get it up and running on the cloud version. For desktop deployment, you can complete your setup within half an hour.
Faustine Chisasa
System Administrator at TZ Telecom Ltd.
The initial setup was straightforward, although it needed time to get everything well-tuned.
View full review »
Hardik Parashar
Associate Data Engineer at Digit Insurance
I was not involved in the actual deployment of the solution and therefore cannot speak to how difficult or simple the process was.
Currently, I've been given the role to do some research and switch to a different database.
View full review »NK
NaveenKumar21
Senior IT Manager at Excelra
The initial setup is not complex at all. I would describe it as straightforward and rather simple.
The deployment is quick as well. It might have taken us about 45 minutes to an hour or so to get everything up and running. It's great.
We have a technical team or two or three people that can manage the deployment and maintenance. You don't need a big team.
View full review »KA
reviewer1425756
Chief technical officer at a healthcare company with 51-200 employees
I think it is difficult to setup. I amended my ID and Oracle advised me to change it, for it to work.
View full review »MR
reviewer1442025
Senior Database Administrator Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
The initial setup was straightforward. It did not take too long. It took maybe one hour to do the installation.
View full review »PG
reviewer1593588
Subdirector - Digital Products and Services at a media company with 501-1,000 employees
On a single machine, the initial setup is extremely easy. I also find configuration to be very simple. It is similar to MySQL in that a person must know what he wants when it comes to setting up the solution, in which certain features would come into play. Setting it up in a different way will involve the use of multiple search engines.
With the solution, one installs it and whatever he tunes is optional. Of course, he would have to play with the configurations if he wishes to have specific personality, such as cluster configurations, or tuning for very demanding performance. Overall, for small things or development, one need only install it, start it and it's done.
While the length of the deployment varies with the configuration, a simple one will take a couple of minutes.
View full review »KÇ
Kaan Çelik
Data Analytics and Business Intelligence Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
In terms of the initial setup, we generally use the cloud system. The cloud system is very easy to set up these days. If you choose some with pre-installment, you trigger the system, and it's pretty automatic. You don't need a lot of things configured. After that, after you start to use it, you can tune it as you like. We made some adjustments on the system - such as additional storage or additional RAM or other resources - and we were able to add those in very easily.
The production system we use for reporting is a read-only system. Due to this, if we use the production system for reporting or other kinds of big data, the system can be slow on the customer side. However, Postgres can still service all the tasks which we need.
We haven't needed too many people to handle deployment and maintenance. There's been around ten or so that have been on it.
View full review »MS
reviewer1428423
Head of Technical Support at a real estate/law firm with 51-200 employees
The installation is pretty quick. It's not hard to set up. I wouldn't describe it as a complex process.
We only have a couple of people on staff that can handle deployment and maintenance.
View full review »SJ
reviewer936300
Director Of Sales Marketing at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
The installation is very simple and took three to four hours.
View full review »SP
reviewer1644435
IT Systems Administrator at a transportation company with 51-200 employees
It is easy to install. The deployment duration depends on what you're deploying. If you just want a database, I can have a PostgreSQL database installed and deployed in probably about 20 minutes. If you're looking for clustering or failover and mirroring, that would obviously impact the time, but it doesn't take a significant amount of time.
View full review »DI
Dimitris Iracleous
Lead Technical Instructor at codehub
The initial setup wasn't difficult. I'd say it was quite straightforward.
The installation took less than an hour.
MA
Maurice Aelion
Senior DBA & IT Consultant at MA Consulting
The initial setup and installation didn't take a lot of time. It usually takes about a couple of hours.
View full review »it_user457323
Senior Database Engineer at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The initial setup is very easy. However, if you want to go deeper and understand how things work and how you can tune the database under various circumstances, then you need to read a lot of books and gather more and more experience.
View full review »it_user456468
Senior DB Engineer at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Installing a PostgreSQL cluster is straightforward. However, it is important to be aware of the architecture of the cluster, its configuration possibilities, and its authorization system. For the tuning of the configuration parameters there is no recipe, because it all depends on how the data looks like. Therefore it is necessary to understand what the individual parameters do and how they influence the overall performance. The correct usage of databases and schemas together with the authorization system, are important in order to build secure systems. It happens still too often on the world wide web that applications interacting with a database use roles with much too many privileges, creating security weaknesses. This however is not only a problem of PostgreSQL.
View full review »it_user457146
Co-Founder, CTO at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
The initial setup was fairly straightforward. That said, configuring the server past defaults can be rather complex. Properly tuning the server requires a fair amount of knowledge concerning the architecture of PostgreSQL itself.
View full review »it_user212523
TIBCO Middleware Architect & System Administrator at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It was pretty straightforward, initially our setup was not complex on purpose, we were looking for a simple yet reliable setup, that allows us to gain expertise before moving to a more complex one.
View full review »EK
reviewer1601793
Sr Lead Data & Information Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The installation is not overly complex. You just install it and start using it. It's simple. We are using AWS for both instances so it's simple and easy. That said, I was not personally involved in the installation process.
How many people you require for the implementation depends on the implementation itself. It can be one person or it can be five. It's difficult to say. In our case, we have only one person looking after all instances.
HP
hugodpereira
Computer engineering student at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
The initial setup could be a bit better. They have some improvements to do especially with regards to the additional tools they propose. That part is just a little bit messy. Other than that, I thought it was very easy to install it. It's not overly complex.
View full review »JT
Jason Tumusiime
Software Developer at a healthcare company with 1-10 employees
The difficulty of the initial setup depends on the application you are deploying the code to. It can be integrated with Docker to enable automation of this process. I put PostgreSQL in a Docker container and then I just collect it. It just works wherever I deploy it. It takes less than three minutes. I use a continuous integration process. The Docker orchestration engine such as Kubernetes or Docker Swarm can be used to integrate with it. I store the code in GitHub or GitLab and your code is always there. Depending on the technology you're using, some things change in your configuration.
View full review »it_user494835
Founder and CEO at Shreeyansh Technologies | The Database Company
Customers may have straightforward or complex environments. However, it's totally based on the technology in use and the amount of money spent for running their business applications.
View full review »it_user86943
Senior Developer with 501-1,000 employees
It's very straightforward initial configuration if you start with your distro packeges.
View full review »it_user234651
Senior Software Engineer, Technical Lead at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Starting a simple database is straightforward, but when it comes to set up, machines for heavy duty operations, read or write, there is a consistent learning curve to take into consideration.
PostgreSQL is a complex database, but once your start mastering its features you discover that things work.
View full review »RU
reviewer1524594
Senior Solutions Architect at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
The installation is easy.
View full review »KV
Karel Van Der Walt
Data Architect at ACPAS Loan Management Software
Its installation is very easy and quick. I am running it on Linux. It took a few minutes to install it.
View full review »it_user383829
Founder and Business Intelligence Consultant at Know Solutions
It's very straightforward if you are using the default configurations. It can become complex when you begin to change these configurations to adapt it to fit your environment.
View full review »DZ
Daniel Alejandro Zuleta Zahr
Developer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Straightforward, however, we are all advanced programmers so the learning curve might have been easier for us.
View full review »it_user130935
President with 51-200 employees
The initial setup was pretty straightforward. A lot of the setup for a typical installation is a Linux scripted Boot-Install disk. Answer a few questions and you are off to the races.
View full review »AA
Andrew Aguda
Projects Manager at Emery Investments
The initial deployment was fine. If you read through the steps, you should be OK.
View full review »LR
Liliana Rodríguez
Analista Funcional Líder at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
It is extremely simple. In addition, we have several databases in production so we always start with a configuration model already tested and reliable.
View full review »it_user464529
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It was straightforward.
View full review »it_user457224
Partner - PostgreSQL support manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees
The learning curve is much friendlier with PostgreSQL than with Oracle or DB2. In fact, this could be a risk, because heavily loaded production environments usually needs DBA monitoring and intervention.
View full review »FA
Florent ADODO
IT Assistant at Hotel 2 Fevrier
The initial setup is straightforward. It was easy to install.
It took only one day to install, and two to three days to connect with the database.
We have a team of three, two admins, and one engineer to maintain the solution.
View full review »it_user493518
Director of Operations / Senior Software Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Initial setup was very straightforward. EnterpriseDB has a great graphical installer to help install on our Dev machines (MacBook Pros). And, AWS RDS makes it is very easy to get set up as well. It allows us to spend our time developing, where our expertise is.
View full review »it_user457197
Senior PostgreSQL Database Adminstrator at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
It is rather complex to set up correctly. The configuration file is over 400 lines in length and many parameters have only vaguely defined suggestions. Changing a single parameter can have unintended consequences.
View full review »it_user67833
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
It was easy.
View full review »it_user434985
Sr. Database Architect at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
PostgreSQL is easy to setup compare to any other commercial RDBMS out there in market. It is easy to install and configure.
View full review »it_user254172
Senior Consultant / Manager Technical Operations at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
It's straightforward, as it's an open source product.
View full review »it_user271512
Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The initial setup is easy to perform, but the tuning is a bit more complex. The installation support on Linux flavours is excellent and has native installation packages.
View full review »SS
reviewer938901
Software Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Installing PostgreSQL was straightforward. There were just a few parameters I needed to get through, then the process became straightforward. I was able to do the installation myself.
View full review »DM
Danilo Martins
Developer at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
The initial setup was somewhat complex. We had to import the old database, which was in MySQL. Most tables were rewritten, and the team was not used to PostgreSQL at that time, so there was a small cultural impact.
View full review »it_user140712
Consultant at a tech consulting company
Defaults for PostgreSQL are very low. In almost all situations one has to do some tweaking to make it perform better. It does not take much time to do it at first, but has to be done!
View full review »
Ruben Conti
Owner at Intersoftware sas
Installing PostgreSQL is not so easy, and the installation takes about one day.
View full review »PA
reviewer1598691
Project Manager at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
The initial setup is straightforward.
It was a token installation, I can do it myself.
View full review »LW
reviewer1481757
IT Innovation & Strategy | Real Estate Strategy, Asset Management & Enabling Functions | GSUS at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
I did not initialize this database, but from what I understand it's very basic. It was simple to do.
View full review »RS
reviewer1734405
Head Channel and Capacity at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
The installation is straightforward and simple, it took only half an hour.
View full review »it_user457251
Data Architect at Blue Treble Solutions
It's not the simplest database to setup, but it's also not difficult at all. The only challenge is that there are many different packages offered by different OSs i.e. Red Hat/Centos, Debian, FreeBSD, Brew, MacPorts, etc), and they all have slight differences. This can lead to some problems during install, but they're not difficult to fix.
View full review »it_user441456
Senior Database DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
If you can type "apt-get install postgresql", you can consider yourself expert in installing PostgreSQL.
View full review »it_user252288
Software architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Depends, for basic setup, it is quite straightforward but for more advanced features (like WAL streaming and hash indexes) it is a bit harder during the first few days because of a lack of documentation and experience.
View full review »it_user127413
Director GIS/Analytics/IT at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
It's straightforward.
View full review »it_user306153
Senior Programmer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
I wasn't involved in the setup as it was already in place when I joined.
View full review »it_user298746
NOC Manager with 51-200 employees
Following the setup documentation was extremely straightforward and simple to follow. We have no issues with the install, config or operation of the application.
View full review »it_user241635
DevOps Engineer at a transportation company with 51-200 employees
I have faced a few issues while installing it and configuring it; most of them related to incompatibility while using old Ubuntu Linux versions.
View full review »it_user184266
Database Expert at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It is simple, especially when you know the main components of a database.
View full review »
Sundaresan Subramanyan
Founder and Managing Director at Analytic Brains Technologies Private Limited
The initial setup is straightforward and took less than one day.
View full review »RP
reviewer1362969
IT Specialist at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
The installation is not simple, it is more difficult than DeviceSQL. We had a few issues during the installation.
View full review »it_user437376
PostgreSQL Database Administrator at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The initial setup is simple and doesn't take a long time, but in serious projects, PostgreSQL requires additional configuration optimizations as do the other RDBMS.
View full review »it_user315483
Programador - Analista at a program development consultancy with 501-1,000 employees
Straightforward, easy and intuitive.
View full review »it_user308454
Sysadmin at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
In my opinion the initial setup is easier than MySQL because it is more intuitive, but you must to edit a couple of config files, and become more aware of the entire infrastructure.
View full review »it_user448368
DBA / ETL Developer / Consultant at a marketing services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's simple to get it up and running.
View full review »it_user203334
Technical Lead with 1,001-5,000 employees
It was straightforward.
View full review »it_user246798
Director of Client Integration at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
I did not set up the actual installation. I did set up the schema, tables, foreign keys, etc. That was straightforward in that it was well documented.
View full review »NB
NikolayBachvarov
Software Architect at AIOPS group
The initial setup is simple - you are only required to download the installation files, which takes just a few minutes.
View full review »VR
reviewer1519272
Full Stack Developer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
The installation is more difficult to install than other solutions I have used.
View full review »it_user457314
Sr. Oracle and PostgreSQL DBA at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I wasn't in my current organisation when it was implemented.
View full review »it_user210627
Computer Science Teacher at a educational organization with 501-1,000 employees
The initial setup was straightforward, just activating various modules was more complex.
View full review »it_user234753
Team Lead ETL at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
On Windows it's straightforward, but on Ubuntu, it was a bit complex when it came to database and tablespace division through PSQL.
View full review »it_user250818
Owner with 51-200 employees
It was simple to setup.
View full review »
KopanoRamaphoi
Consultant at Rpc Data
The installation was easy even though it took approximately four hours. The time accumulated from downloading automatic packages from the VM tunnel. You have to download the whole package on your machine.
View full review »JP
reviewer1490673
Principal Engineer at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
It is pretty straightforward.
View full review »RM
reviewer1353249
Director at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
I don't have any experience with the implementation. I didn't handle the process personally.
I'm unsure as to how long deployment takes.
You don't need too much staff for maintenance. We have one person that handles it.
View full review »it_user262230
Front-End Developer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
It was straightforward and well integrated into Rails applications across open source world.
View full review »it_user280329
CTO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It was quite straightforward.
View full review »it_user389811
Co-Founder, Technical Manager, Consultant at a hospitality company with 51-200 employees
On Debian, the provided packages are very easy to install and provide automatic updates. On Mac OS X, EnterpriseDB provides packages that work very well but as not as well integrated than in Debian.
View full review »DR
Diego Rosales
Implementation Engineer at aldaris spa
The setup of PostgreSQL is straightforward.
View full review »it_user219786
Founding Partner at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
Setup was very easy on all platforms that I use - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows. It is a simple walk-through installation.
View full review »it_user312354
Software Architect and Senior Technology Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The initial setup is easy because it's only a package. It can be setup either on the cloud or with hosting providers once it's installed.
View full review »it_user373887
Senior Software Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
I do remember facing problems with the initial setup, but the overall documentation and SO answers has increased since then. New users face much less problem now. But there is still scope for improvement here.
View full review »it_user439254
Expert Web Developer at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
The setup was easy.
View full review »it_user145641
Business Analyst at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Easy and straightforward
View full review »
it_user89940
Database Expert with 201-500 employees
Using the packaged way is almost immediate to install the product. Even the compile from source is a task any system administrator or advanced linux user can do it without any problem.
View full review »
it_user677721
Information Technology Technician at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
The initial setup is simple.
it_user434967
Staff System Admin at a tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The initial setup is very straightforward.
View full review »it_user417285
Senior Production Support Engineer at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees
It was a bit complex to setup, although I think this was due to ignorance on the project.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
PostgreSQL
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about PostgreSQL. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
768,578 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free PostgreSQL Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Popular Comparisons
MySQL
MariaDB
Firebird SQL
EDB Postgres Advanced Server
SQLite
Faiss
Percona Server
Chroma
YugabyteDB
OpenSearch
LanceDB
Oracle MySQL Cloud Service
Weaviate
Buyer's Guide
Download our free PostgreSQL Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More:
- Primary Use Case
- Valuable Features
- Room for Improvement
- Customer Service and Support
- Initial Setup
- ROI
- Pricing
- Other Advice
- What is the best GUI tool for development and management of a PostgreSQL database?
- How does Firebird SQL compare with PostgreSQL?
- When evaluating Open Source Databases, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
- Did you switch from a different solution to MySQL? Can you list a few pros and cons for making the move?
- Which database is the best for session cashing?
- Which low-code (no-code) database solution do you prefer?
- Why is Open Source Databases important for companies?
