Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

PostgreSQL

98.1K
82.1K
+ 1
3.5K
TimescaleDB

214
370
+ 1
44
Add tool

PostgreSQL vs TimescaleDB: What are the differences?

Introduction:

In the world of relational databases, PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB are two popular choices. While PostgreSQL is a powerful open-source object-relational database management system, TimescaleDB is an extension built on top of PostgreSQL specifically designed for time-series data. Despite their common foundation, these two databases exhibit several key differences that make them suited for distinct use cases.

  1. Data Model: PostgreSQL follows a traditional relational data model that organizes data into tables with rows and columns. On the other hand, TimescaleDB extends this model by introducing a hypertable concept, which automatically partitions data based on time. This allows TimescaleDB to efficiently handle large volumes of time-series data without sacrificing performance.

  2. Performance: TimescaleDB is optimized for time-series workloads and excels in handling large amounts of time-series data. It leverages compression techniques, automatic indexing, and parallelization to ensure high ingest rates and efficient querying. PostgreSQL, on the other hand, is a general-purpose database that may not provide the same level of performance for time-series workloads.

  3. Aggregation Functions: TimescaleDB extends PostgreSQL's arsenal of aggregation functions with special functions tailored for time-series data analysis. These functions include timebucket, timebucketgapfill, and timeweighted_average, which simplify common time-series calculations. While PostgreSQL can also perform such calculations, TimescaleDB offers them in a more streamlined and efficient manner.

  4. Using Extensions: PostgreSQL supports various extensions that enhance its functionality. However, integrating extensions with PostgreSQL can sometimes be a complex process due to compatibility and versioning concerns. In contrast, TimescaleDB is itself an extension of PostgreSQL, ensuring seamless compatibility and ease of installation.

  5. Continuous Aggregates: TimescaleDB introduces the concept of continuous aggregates, which are precomputed materialized views of time-series data. These aggregates can significantly speed up queries that involve aggregations over time. PostgreSQL does not provide built-in support for continuous aggregates, requiring manual implementation of similar functionality.

  6. Data Retention Policies: TimescaleDB provides a flexible system for automatically expiring or retaining old time-series data based on time-based policies. This feature allows users to easily manage storage costs and data retention requirements. PostgreSQL lacks built-in support for such policies and requires manual implementation or the use of external tools.

In summary, TimescaleDB offers a specialized solution for time-series data that enhances performance, provides dedicated functions, simplifies aggregation, and introduces unique features like continuous aggregates and data retention policies. PostgreSQL, while being a more general-purpose database, may not offer the same efficiency and ease of use for time-series workloads.

Advice on PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB
Needs advice
on
MongoDBMongoDBMySQLMySQL
and
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I'm planning to build a freelance marketplace website, using tools like Next.js, Firebase Authentication, Node.js, but I need to know which type of database is suitable with performance and powerful features. I'm trying to figure out what the best stack is for this project. If anyone has advice please, I’d love to hear more details. Thanks.

See more
Replies (3)
Reza Malek
at Meam Software Engineering Group · | 9 upvotes · 187K views
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

Postgres and MySQL are very similar, but Mongo has differences in terms of storage type and the CAP theorem. For your requirement, I prefer Postgres (or MySQL) over MongoDB. Mongo gives you no schema which is not always good. on the other hand, it is more common in NodeJS community, so you may find more articles about Node-Mongo stuff. I suggest to stay with RDBMS if possible.

See more
Recommends
on
MySQLMySQLPostgreSQLPostgreSQL

This is a little about experience. Postgresql is fine. You can use either the related table structure or the json table structure.

See more
Ruslan Rayanov
Recommends
on
MySQLMySQL

We have a ready-made engine for the online exchange and marketplace. To customize it, you only need to know sql. Connecting any database is not a problem. https://falconspace.site/list/solutions

See more
Umair Iftikhar
Technical Architect at ERP Studio · | 3 upvotes · 448.9K views
Needs advice
on
CassandraCassandraDruidDruid
and
TimescaleDBTimescaleDB

Developing a solution that collects Telemetry Data from different devices, nearly 1000 devices minimum and maximum 12000. Each device is sending 2 packets in 1 second. This is time-series data, and this data definition and different reports are saved on PostgreSQL. Like Building information, maintenance records, etc. I want to know about the best solution. This data is required for Math and ML to run different algorithms. Also, data is raw without definitions and information stored in PostgreSQL. Initially, I went with TimescaleDB due to PostgreSQL support, but to increase in sites, I started facing many issues with timescale DB in terms of flexibility of storing data.

My major requirement is also the replication of the database for reporting and different purposes. You may also suggest other options other than Druid and Cassandra. But an open source solution is appreciated.

See more
Replies (1)
Recommends
on
MongoDBMongoDB

Hi Umair, Did you try MongoDB. We are using MongoDB on a production environment and collecting data from devices like your scenario. We have a MongoDB cluster with three replicas. Data from devices are being written to the master node and real-time dashboard UI is using the secondary nodes for read operations. With this setup write operations are not affected by read operations too.

See more
Dennis Kraaijeveld
Needs advice
on
ExpressJSExpressJSMongoDBMongoDB
and
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

For learning purposes, I am trying to design a dashboard that displays the total revenue from all connected webshops/marketplaces, displaying incoming orders, total orders, etc.

So I will need to get the data (using Node backend) from the Shopify and marketplace APIs, storing this in the database, and get the data from the back end.

My question is:

What kind of database should I use? Is MongoDB fine for storing this kind of data? Or should I go with a SQL database?

See more
Replies (3)
Arash JalaliGhalibaf
Software Engineer at Cafe Bazaar · | 10 upvotes · 251.2K views
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

Postgres is a solid database with a promising background. In the relational side of database design, I see Postgres as an absolute; Now the arguments and conflicts come in when talking about NoSQL data types. The truth is jsonb in Postgres is efficient and gives a good performance and storage. In a comparison with MongoDB with the same resources (such as RAM and CPU) with better tools and community, I think you should go for Postgres and use jsonb for some of the data. All in all, don't use a NoSQL database just cause you have the data type matching this tech, have both SQL and NoSQL at the same time.

See more
Recommends
on
MongoDBMongoDB

I have found MongoDB easier to work with. Postgres and SQL in general, in my experience, is harder to work with. While Postgres does provide data consistency, MongoDB provides flexibility. I've found the MongoDB ecosystem to be really great with a good community. I've worked with MongoDB in production and it's been great. I really like the aggregation system and using query operators such as $in, $pull, $push.

While my opinion may be unpopular, I have found MongoDB really great for relational data, using aggregations from a code perspective. In general, data types are also more flexible with MongoDB.

See more
Luciano Bustos
Senior Software Developer · | 1 upvotes · 241K views
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I will use PostgreSQL because you have more powerfull feature for data agregation and views (the raw data from shopify and others could be stored as is) and then use views to produce diff. kind of reports unless you wanna create those aggregations/views in nodejs code. HTH

See more
Krunal Shah
Technical Lead at Infynno Solutions · | 7 upvotes · 263.6K views
Needs advice
on
MongoDBMongoDB
and
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I want to store the data retrieved from multiple APIs and perform some analytics on it. The data stored in DB will never/hardly change. First, I thought it would be better to retrieve the data and create table columns for them, but some data might have different columns than others. So I thought about storing the JSON response from API directly to the table and use it. So which database will be the better choice, PostgreSQL or MongoDB.

See more
Replies (6)
Nikhil Gurnani
Sr. Backend Engineer at Grappus · | 8 upvotes · 255.9K views
Recommends
on
MongoDBMongoDB

Hey Krunal, your requirement sounds pretty clear and specific to what you want to do with that data. My recommendation to you, would be to use MongoDB. Since schema-less IO is faster in MongoDB, your general speed of reading / writing from and to the database would be quick. Additionally, the aggregate framework is very powerful with large data so that is also something that you can use in computing your analytics.

See more
Maxim Ryakhovskiy
Recommends
on
MongoDBMongoDBMongooseMongoose

I suggest you to go with MongoDB, because it is schema-less, i.e., it permits you to easily manipulate the schema of a table. If you want to add a column, it can be done without much effort. Moreover, MongoDB can deal with more types of data, since the latest is stored as key-value pair. I do not what kind of analysis you are going to do, but NoSQL is not the best choice if you are going to use complex queries. In addition, if you are working with huge amount of data and you are interested in optimising the performance, I suggest you PostgreSQL. Since you are speaking about API and JSON, I guess that you may using Node JS for fetching API. I suggest you to try Mongoose, which facilitate the use of MongoDB with Node JS.

See more
Tarun Batra
Senior Software Developer at Okta · | 3 upvotes · 251.9K views
Recommends
on
MongoDBMongoDBPostgreSQLPostgreSQL

Looks like the use case is to store JSON data. mongoDB and Postgres differ in so many aspects like scaling and consistency. Postgres has excellent JSON support now with the power of SQL. MongoDB is good in handling schema less data. However in this case it seems these differences don’t matter that much. I’d recommend you go with what you are most comfortable with.

See more
Bob Bass
President & Full Stack Enginee at Narro, LLC · | 3 upvotes · 251.7K views
Recommends
on
MySQLMySQLPostgreSQLPostgreSQL

This is largely a matter of opinion. I see that someone else responded and recommended MongoDB but since you are doing data analytics, I highly recommend you go with SQL. You're going to have a really hard time normalizing the data when you can't manipulate relationships and bulk edit with a nice update query.

I'm much more experienced with MySQL than any other database and I am having a hard time getting on board with noSQL entirely because it's really hard to query complex data with relationships using noSQL. I'm using Firestore with one of my apps and MongoDB with another app but they both use MySQL for the heavy lifting and then a document database for things like permissions, caching, etc.

It sounds like the type of problem you need to reverse engineer. I'm sure you can imagine what the data sets would look like if you use MongoDB or Postgres. I suspect that putting in a little bit more work up front will pay high dividends and productivity once the data is normalized.

Again - it's largely a matter of preference but I prefer SQL almost every time.

See more
Luiz H. Rapatão
Staff Software Engineer at rapatao.com · | 3 upvotes · 251.9K views
Recommends
on
MongoDBMongoDB

I don't have an unquestionable opinion regarding your use case. I only trend to pick the MongoDB since it is schemaless avoiding null columns that you not always know when it is used (it depends on the source of the data). The only drawback that I could consider is the query's complexity in MongoDB, sometimes it is a bit tricky, when compared to the traditional SQL queries.

See more
Recommends
on
MongoDBMongoDB

MongoDB should be better for unstructured/less structured data.

See more
Needs advice
on
MongoDBMongoDB
and
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I need urgent advice from you all! I am making a web-based food ordering platform which includes 3 different ordering methods (Dine-in using QR code scanning + Take away + Home Delivery) and a table reservation system. We are using React for the front-end, and I need your advice if I should use NestJS or ExpressJS for the backend. And regarding the database, which database should I use, MongoDB or PostgreSQL? Which combination will be better? PS. We want to follow the microservice architecture as scalability, reliability, and usability are the most important Non Functional requirements. Expert advice is needed, please. A load of thanks in advance. Kind Regards, Miqdad

See more
Replies (3)
Stephen Badger | Vital Beats
Senior DevOps Engineer at Vital Beats · | 9 upvotes · 270.8K views
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL
at

I can't speak for the NestJS vs ExpressJS discussion, but I can given a viewpoint on databases.

The main thing to consider around database choice, is what "shape" the data will be in, and the kind of read/write patterns you expect of that data. The blog example shows up so much for DBMS like MongoDB, because it showcases what NoSQL / document storage is very scalable and performant in: mostly isolated documents with a few views / ways to order them and filter them. In your case, I can imagine a number of "relations" already, which suggest a more traditional SQL solution would work well: You have restaurants, they have maybe a few menus (regular, gluten-free etc), with menu items in, which have different prices over time (25% discount on christmas food just after christmas, 50% off pizzas on wednesdays). Then there's a whole different set of "relations" for people ordering, like showing them past orders, which need to refer to the restaurant etc, and credit card transaction information for refunds etc. That to me suggests PostgreSQL, which will scale quite well if you database design is okay.

PostgreSQL also offers you some extensions, which are just amazing for your use-case. https://postgis.net/ for example will let you query for restaurants based on location, without the big cost that comes from constantly using something like Google Maps API to work out which restaurants are near to someone ordering. Partitioning and window functions will be great for your own use internally too, like answering questions of "What types of takeways perform the best for us, Italian, Mexican?" or in combination with PostGIS, answering questions like "What kind of takeways do we need to market to, to improve our selection?".

While these things can all be implemented in MongoDB, you tend to lose some of the convenience of ACID or have to deal with things like eventual consistency, which requires more thinking on the part of your engineers. PostgreSQL offers decent (if more complex) scalablity and redundancy solutions, and is honestly very well proven and plenty of documentation exists on optimising queries.

See more
Anis Zehani
Recommends
on
MongoDBMongoDB

Hello, i build microservice systems using Angular And Spring (Java) so i can't help with with ur back end choice, BUT, i definitely advice you to use a Nosql database, thus MongoDB of course or even Cassandra if your looking for extreme scalability with zero point of failure. Anyway, Nosql if much more faster then Sql (in your case Postresql DB). All you wanna do with sql can also be done by nosql (not the opposite of course).I also advice you to use docker containers + kubernetes to orchestrate them, if you need scalability and replication, that way your app can support auto scalability (in case ur users number goes high). Best of luck

See more
Carlos Iglesias
Recommends

About PostgreSQL vs MongoDB: short answer. Both are great. Choose what you like the most. Only if you expect millions of users, I‘ll incline with MongoDB.

See more
Dimelo Waterson
Needs advice
on
MySQLMySQLPostgreSQLPostgreSQL
and
SQLiteSQLite

I need to add a DBMS to my stack, but I don't know which. I'm tempted to learn SQLite since it would be useful to me with its focus on local access without concurrency. However, doing so feels like I would be defeating the purpose of trying to expand my skill set since it seems like most enterprise applications have the opposite requirements.

To be able to apply what I learn to more projects, what should I try to learn? MySQL? PostgreSQL? Something else? Is there a comfortable middle ground between high applicability and ease of use?

See more
Replies (3)
Recommends
on
SQLiteSQLite

You can easily start with SQlite. Really easy to startup since it doesn't require you to install any additional software since is self-contained. It has interfaces in almost any language and also GUIs. Start learning SQL basics and simpler data models and structures. There are many tutorials, also available in the official website. From there you will easily migrate to another database. MySQL could be next, sonce it's easier to learn at first and has more resources available. PostgreSQL is less widespread, more challenging and has the fewer resorces, but once you have some experience with MySQL is really easy to learn as well. All these technologies are really widespread and used accross the industry so you won't make a wrong decision with any of these.

See more
Stephen Badger | Vital Beats
Senior DevOps Engineer at Vital Beats · | 6 upvotes · 292.1K views

A question you might want to think about is "What kind of experience do I want to gain, by using a DBMS?". If your aim is to have experience with SQL and any related libraries and frameworks for your language of choice (python, I think?), then it kind of doesn't matter too much which you pick so much. As others have said, SQLite would offer you the ability to very easily get started, and would give you a reasonably standard (if a little basic) SQL dialect to work with.

If your aim is actually to have a bit of "operational" experience, in terms of things like what command line tools might be available as standard for the DBMS, understanding how the DBMS handles multiple databases, when to use multiple schemas vs multiple databases, some basic privilege management etc. Then I would recommend PostgreSQL. SQLite's simplicity actually avoids most of these experiences, which is not helpful to you if that is what you hope to learn. MySQL has a few "quirks" to how it manages things like multiple databases, which may lead you to making less good decisions if you tried to take your experience over to different DBMS, especially in bigger enterprise roles. PostgreSQL is kind of a happy middle ground here, with the ability to start PostgreSQL servers via docker or docker-compose making the actual day-to-day management pretty easy, while still giving you experience of the kinds of considerations I have listed above.

At Vital Beats we make use of PostgreSQL, largely because it offers us a happy balance between good management and backup of data, and good standard command line tools, which is essential for us where we are deploying our solutions within Kubernetes / docker, and so more graphical tools are not always appropriate for us. PostgreSQL is also pretty universally supported in terms of language libraries and frameworks, without having to make compromises on how we want to store and layout our data.

See more
Julien DeFrance
Principal Software Engineer at Tophatter · | 1 upvotes · 283.5K views
Recommends
on
MySQLMySQL

MySQL's very popular, easy to install, is also available as a managed service across most popular cloud offerings. The support/default tooling (such as MySQL Query Workbench) certainly is a little more baked than what you'll find for Postgres.

https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/workbench/

See more
Maxim Ryakhovskiy
Needs advice
on
MariaDBMariaDBMongooseMongoose
and
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

Hi all. I am an informatics student, and I need to realise a simple website for my friend. I am planning to realise the website using Node.js and Mongoose, since I have already done a project using these technologies. I also know SQL, and I have used PostgreSQL and MySQL previously.

The website will show a possible travel destination and local transportation. The database is used to store information about traveling, so only admin will manage the content (especially photos). While clients will see the content uploaded by the admin. I am planning to use Mongoose because it is very simple and efficient for this project. Please give me your opinion about this choice.

See more
Replies (7)

The use case you are describing would benefit from a self-hosted headless CMS like contentful. You can also go for Strapi with a database of your choice but here you would have to host Strapi and the underlying database (if not using SQLite) yourself. If you want to use Strapi, you can ease your work by using something like PlanetSCaleDB as the backing database for Strapi.

See more
Reza Malek
at Meam Software Engineering Group · | 4 upvotes · 231.8K views
Recommends
on
MongooseMongoosePostgreSQLPostgreSQL

Your requirements seem nothing special. on the other hand, MongoDB is commonly used with Node. you could use Mongo without defining a Schema, does it give you any benefits? Also, note that development speed matters. In most cases RDBMS are the best choice, Learn and use Postgres for life!

See more
Recommends
on
MongooseMongoose

Any database will be a great choice for your app, which is less of a technical challenge and more about great content. Go for it, the geographical search features maybe be actually handy for you.

See more
Nutchanon Ninyawee

SQL is not so good at query lat long out of the box. you might need to use additional tools for that like UTM coordinates or Uber's H3.

If you use mongoDB, it support 2d coordinate query out of the box.

See more
Tarun Batra
Senior Software Developer at Okta · | 2 upvotes · 223.9K views
Recommends
on
MongooseMongoose

MongoDB and Mongoose are commonly used with Node.js and the use case doesn't seem to be requiring any special considerations as of now. However using MongoDB now will allow you to easily expand and modify your use case in future.

If not MongoDB, then my second choice will be PostgreSQL. It's a generic purpose database with jsonb support (if you need it) and lots of resources online. Nobody was fired for choosing PostgreSQL.

See more
Václav Hodek
CEO, lead developer at Localazy · | 1 upvotes · 224.3K views
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

Any database engine should work well but I vote for Postgres because of PostGIS extension that may be handy for travel related site. There's nothing special about your requirements.

See more
Ruslan Rayanov
Recommends

Hi, Maxim! Most likely, the site is almost ready. But we would like to share our development with you. https://falcon.web-automation.ru/ This is a constructor for web application. With it, you can create almost any site with different roles which have different levels of access to information and different functionality. The platform is managed via sql. knowing sql, you will be able to change the business logic as necessary and during further project maintenance. We will be glad to hear your feedback about the platform.

See more
Prithvi Singh
Application Developer at Montaigne Smart Business Solutions · | 8 upvotes · 916K views
Needs advice
on
MongoDBMongoDBMySQLMySQL
and
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I am going to work on a real estate project and have to decide on a database. Now, SQL databases can be very efficient if appropriately designed. More relations between the data and less redundancy. But with a #NoSQL database, the development time is reduced, and it is easy to query. Since this is my first time working on the real estate domain, I would like to pick a database that would be efficient in the long run.

See more
Replies (4)
Aric Fedida
Founder, CTO at ASK Technologies Inc · | 15 upvotes · 908.1K views
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I recommend PostgreSQL as it’s the most powerful out of the 3 databases you mentioned. It supports JSON objects so you can mimic the MongoDB functionality, but I would also argue that SQL is actually quite powerful and in many cases significantly easier to work with than with NoSQL databases.

Stay away from foreign keys, keep it fast and simple. Define your data structures well in advance. Try to model your data structures based on your system’s vision; based on where it’s going and not based solely on what you currently need it to do. This will help you avoid drastic changes to your database after your system is launched. Populate the database with fake data and run tests. PostgreSQL allows you to create Views from multiple tables. Try to create those views and make sure you can easily create useful views from multiple tables. Run an Explain on those view queries to make sure you created your indexes correctly. Make sure it’s fast!

See more
Matthew Rothstein
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

Any of those three databases are going to be efficient, scalable, and reliable in the long term if you configure and use them correctly. They all also have solid hosting solutions.

All things being equal, I would agree with other posters that Postgres is my preference among the three, but there are caveats.

MongoDB and MySQL have better support for mutli-region replication in your big three cloud environments. Azure recently bought Citus Data, which was a best-in-class Postgres replication solution, so they might be the only one I trust to provide cross-region replication at the moment.

If you have a single region deployment and are on AWS, I can't recommend Aurora Postgres highly enough. It's a very good implementation and extremely performant.

See more
Josh Dzielak
Co-Founder & CTO at Orbit · | 4 upvotes · 903.6K views
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I'll second another piece of advice. Postgresql's JSON columns are a dream when it comes to productivity and I use them frequently with our Rails application. In these cases, no migration is required to change schema. We store payloads with dozens or hundreds of keys and performance has not been an issue. We also have a lot of relational tables, so the joins we get with SQL are very important to us and hard to replicate with a NoQL solution.

See more
Danilo Kaltner
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

That really depends of where do you see you application in the long run. On any application, any of those choices are excellent. You could argue about good support on JSON binaries, but even MySQL has an excellent support for that on the latest versions.

On the long run, when your application gets hundreds of thousands of requests per second, you might start thinking about how many inputs you will have in the database compared to the outputs. PostgresSQL it’s excellent at giving you outputs, but table corruption can happen when you start receiving this massive number of inputs (Which was the reason Uber switched from Postgres to MySQL)

On our OPS Platform at CTO.ai , we decided to use Postgres, because we need a reliable and agile way to send the output to our users, so that was out best choice in the long run for our product.

See more
Needs advice
on
MongoDBMongoDB
and
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

I am one of those who believes that MongoDB can be used for everything, this thanks to the advertising of MongoDB.

We are creating an e-commerce platform, we know that it has many relationships, but with MongoDB we can avoid some, but in the end, some relationships have to exist.

A single developer to create two native applications in Flutter, a web application with React, create the backend with multiple microservices hosted with Google Cloud Run. PostgreSQL can be heavy because it should be used with an ORM, on the contrary, with MongoDB you can avoid some relationships and avoid ORM / ODM.

We need advice from someone who has the experience and has had to choose between these two databases for an e-commerce site.

See more
Replies (4)
Recommends
on
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

The real question here is not about the technology but rather your real needs and your data. Do you need to manage data that has core concepts and relations ? (such as a family, with parents and children) or do you need to manage a basic collection of similar data (such as blog entries)? PostgreSQL is definitely a relational database for managing entities and their relationships whereas MongoDB (I may be strongly opinionated here ;-) ) is more targeted at managing collection of entities (such as the blog entries). For an e-commerce site (with some products, products categories, user ratings and comments, prices, bundles...) I would go for PostgreSQL as it will support/guide you in creating a structured data set with all your products, organized in categories and with user ratings/comments attached to them. HTH

See more
Valeriy Bykanov
Founder, CEO at X1 Group · | 3 upvotes · 629.1K views
Recommends
at

Had exactly the same question when selecting data storage for our new product. Not e-commerce though, rather interactive and content-focused HR SaaS for SME.

The key arguments for PostgreSQL

  • It gives you the opportunity to use relationships where you really need it and just go with key-value tables where you don't.

  • With Jsonb datatype you can store documents/objects/arrays as JSON then use JSON elements in queries and even indexes.

  • There are more tools/integrations working with PostgreSQL which you can use out of the box, e.g. Hasura

See more
Damián Gil
Advisor at Empresa En Crecimiento · | 3 upvotes · 627.6K views
Recommends
on
MongoDBMongoDB

I am in your spot, exactly. A few months ago, I had decided to use Postgres because since its version 9 it showed a lot of progress for being a high-availability database. However, frankly, I didn't want to model statically all data, since I have several distinct schemas (like for different product types) and I wanted some flexibility to add or remove as I saw fit. One of the main challenges with analyzing a NoSQL database being familiar in the SQL ways, is that it's easy to look for "analogies" for what makes SQL useful, like relationship enforcing, transactions and the cascading effect on deletes, updates and inserts, and that limit your vision a lot when analyzing a tool like Mongo, especially in a micro-services pattern. Now-a-days, I really found my solution in Mongo. Not just because of it being NoSQL, but because all of the support I find in the NodeJS community through packages and utilities that make it dead easy to use it for several use-cases. Whatever Postgres offers, Mongo does it a little easier and better, like text search and geo-queries. What you need to see is to model your data in a way that makes sense with Mongo. For instance, I've got a User service that has all auth related information of a user. But then, I have the same user in the Profile service, with the same id, but totally different fields. You have two de facto ways to connect data, by reference and embedding, which in Ecommerce, both have big uses. Like using references to relate a User to a Profile, and an embed to relate a Product to an Order. There's even a third, albeit a little more "manual" implementation here, the graph relationship in which you can model data, in which you can easily model event-driven documents, like a Purchase that goes from "a customer" to "a store", which you can later use for much easier and deep analytics than with the classical SQL stance. MariaDB has it readily available, and also has many improvements over MySQL and Postgres, especially for NoSQL features and scalability. Sadly it is just seen as a MySQL clone, but it offers more than that (although its documentation could be improved). Using Mongo in a micro-service environment is even better because your models can be smaller, meaning less burden on relationships, although you do compensate with a bit of duplication, but a well-designed schema will have minimal impact on that. Whatever tool might do the job, but I want to cheer on the newer generation. Hope it helps.

See more
Needs advice
on
MongoDBMongoDBMySQLMySQL
and
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL

Hello,

I am trying to design an online ordering app similar to Doordash or Uber Eats. I'm having a hard time trying to finalise on what database (or mixture of databases) to use. I'm leaning towards using a relational database like MySQL or PostgreSQL. But, when the application grows, I don't want to join on 20 tables to get a data. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

See more
Replies (2)
Rupen Makhecha
Recommends
on
MySQLMySQL

Hello Suhas , We build our product www.voilacabs.com which is in the same lines as yours but we have used a combination of Mysql and MongoDB. When using MySQL, i would recommend doing the following: 1. Use Mysql only for storage only and for realtime updates we recommend MongoDB. 2. Don't try to Join more than 3 tables. ( the moment you reach 3 join stop there and try to un-normalized database. 3. Never or very rarely use Auto-increments. ( we recommend using UUIDS ) . Use UUIDS always for Auto increments for MYSQL. If you using Postgre SQL then i would suggest you to please check this https://instagram-engineering.com/sharding-ids-at-instagram-1cf5a71e5a5c There is a stored procedure that generated unique keys instead of auto-increment keys and that will help you sharding or clustering database without sync errors. 4. Also For MongoDB if you can put a layer of REDIS Cache then that will boost your api performance under large loads. 5. Use Node.js programing language as that function asynchronously .

Let me know if you still need any suggestion's . Thanks & Regards Rupen Makhecha CTO @ Voila Cab's www.voilacabs.com

See more
Rafey Iqbal Rahman
Recommends
on
MySQLMySQL
at

I would recommend a mixture of MySQL and MongoDB. Using MongoDB for the Content Distribution Network (CDN) will make it easy to store high volume incoming data. MySQL is recommended to be used for business logic. PostgreSQL is not recommended since you will be faced with inefficient database replication features and constant migration from one PostgreSQL version to another.

See more
Decisions about PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB

Backend:

  • Considering that our main app functionality involves data processing, we chose Python as the programming language because it offers many powerful math libraries for data-related tasks. We will use Flask for the server due to its good integration with Python. We will use a relational database because it has good performance and we are mostly dealing with CSV files that have a fixed structure. We originally chose SQLite, but after realizing the limitations of file-based databases, we decided to switch to PostgreSQL, which has better compatibility with our hosting service, Heroku.
See more
Anthony Simon

I try to follow the 80-20 rule when it comes to my choice of tools. This means my stack consists of about 80% software I already know well, but I do allow myself 20% of the stack to explore tech I have less experience with.

The exact ratio is not what’s important here, it’s more the fact that you should lean towards using proven technologies.

I wrote more about this on my blog post on Choosing Boring Technology: https://panelbear.com/blog/boring-tech/

See more
Daniel Moya
Data Engineer at Dimensigon · | 4 upvotes · 461.2K views

We have chosen Tibero over Oracle because we want to offer a PL/SQL-as-a-Service that the users can deploy in any Cloud without concerns from our website at some standard cost. With Oracle Database, developers would have to worry about what they implement and the related costs of each feature but the licensing model from Tibero is just 1 price and we have all features included, so we don't have to worry and developers using our SQLaaS neither. PostgreSQL would be open source. We have chosen Tibero over Oracle because we want to offer a PL/SQL that you can deploy in any Cloud without concerns. PostgreSQL would be the open source option but we need to offer an SQLaaS with encryption and more enterprise features in the background and best value option we have found, it was Tibero Database for PL/SQL-based applications.

See more
Tom Klein

The Gentlent Tech Team made lots of updates within the past year. The biggest one being our database:

We decided to migrate our #PostgreSQL -based database systems to a custom implementation of #Cassandra . This allows us to integrate our product data perfectly in a system that just makes sense. High availability and scalability are supported out of the box.

See more
Kyle Harrison
Web Application Developer at Fortinet · | 11 upvotes · 974.5K views

MySQL has a lot of strengths working for it. It's simple and easy to set up and use. It's JSON engine is also really good these days. Mongo is also simple to setup and use, and it's speed as a document-object storage engine is first class.

Where Postgres has both beat is in it's combining of all of the features that make both MySQL and Mongo great, while adding on enterprise grade level scalability and replication. It's Postgres' stability and robustness, while still fulfilling the roles of it's contemporaries extremely well that edge Postgre for me.

See more

We used Mongo for the first iterations of our app, but the relational nature of our data was an awkward fit for a database that is not relational. We sorely lacked relational database integrity features that needed to be done on the application side (poorly) and it was a huge relief when we managed to port our application over to Postgres, which performs great and never gives us trouble, while having very user friendly extensions like JSON and PubSub that made the transition easy.

See more
Ram Kumar
CTO, Architect at Sarvasv.in · | 2 upvotes · 450.8K views

PostgreSQL is enterprise level database with transactions, full-text indexes, vector indexes, JSON, BLOB, geo-spatial data and a lot more. Highly scalable, configurable and easily maintainable. all that on an open source RDBMS database and you are still looking for GPL licensed MySQL with limited features? Look again.

See more
Kyle Harrison
Web Application Developer at Fortinet · | 21 upvotes · 412.5K views

While there's been some very clever techniques that has allowed non-natively supported geo querying to be performed, it is incredibly slow in the long game and error prone at best.

MySQL finally introduced it's own GEO functions and special indexing operations for GIS type data. I prototyped with this, as MySQL is the most familiar database to me. But no matter what I did with it, how much tuning i'd give it, how much I played with it, the results would come back inconsistent.

It was very disappointing.

I figured, at this point, that SQL Server, being an enterprise solution authored by one of the biggest worldwide software developers in the world, Microsoft, might contain some decent GIS in it.

I was very disappointed.

Postgres is a Database solution i'm still getting familiar with, but I noticed it had no built in support for GIS. So I hilariously didn't pay it too much attention. That was until I stumbled upon PostGIS and my world changed forever.

See more
Benoit Larroque
Principal Engineer at Sqreen · | 2 upvotes · 143.6K views

I chose TimescaleDB because to be the backend system of our production monitoring system. We needed to be able to keep track of multiple high cardinality dimensions.

The drawbacks of this decision are our monitoring system is a bit more ad hoc than it used to (New Relic Insights)

We are combining this with Grafana for display and Telegraf for data collection

See more
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More
Pros of PostgreSQL
Pros of TimescaleDB
  • 763
    Relational database
  • 510
    High availability
  • 439
    Enterprise class database
  • 383
    Sql
  • 304
    Sql + nosql
  • 173
    Great community
  • 147
    Easy to setup
  • 131
    Heroku
  • 130
    Secure by default
  • 113
    Postgis
  • 50
    Supports Key-Value
  • 48
    Great JSON support
  • 34
    Cross platform
  • 33
    Extensible
  • 28
    Replication
  • 26
    Triggers
  • 23
    Multiversion concurrency control
  • 23
    Rollback
  • 21
    Open source
  • 18
    Heroku Add-on
  • 17
    Stable, Simple and Good Performance
  • 15
    Powerful
  • 13
    Lets be serious, what other SQL DB would you go for?
  • 11
    Good documentation
  • 9
    Scalable
  • 8
    Free
  • 8
    Reliable
  • 8
    Intelligent optimizer
  • 7
    Transactional DDL
  • 7
    Modern
  • 6
    One stop solution for all things sql no matter the os
  • 5
    Relational database with MVCC
  • 5
    Faster Development
  • 4
    Full-Text Search
  • 4
    Developer friendly
  • 3
    Excellent source code
  • 3
    Free version
  • 3
    Great DB for Transactional system or Application
  • 3
    Relational datanbase
  • 3
    search
  • 3
    Open-source
  • 2
    Text
  • 2
    Full-text
  • 1
    Can handle up to petabytes worth of size
  • 1
    Composability
  • 1
    Multiple procedural languages supported
  • 0
    Native
  • 9
    Open source
  • 8
    Easy Query Language
  • 7
    Time-series data analysis
  • 5
    Established postgresql API and support
  • 4
    Reliable
  • 2
    Paid support for automatic Retention Policy
  • 2
    Chunk-based compression
  • 2
    Postgres integration
  • 2
    High-performance
  • 2
    Fast and scalable
  • 1
    Case studies

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of PostgreSQL
Cons of TimescaleDB
  • 10
    Table/index bloatings
  • 5
    Licensing issues when running on managed databases

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types and functions.

What is TimescaleDB?

TimescaleDB: An open-source database built for analyzing time-series data with the power and convenience of SQL — on premise, at the edge, or in the cloud.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use PostgreSQL?
What companies use TimescaleDB?
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with PostgreSQL?
What tools integrate with TimescaleDB?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

Blog Posts

Dec 8 2020 at 5:50PM

DigitalOcean

GitHubMySQLPostgreSQL+11
2
2438
Nov 20 2019 at 3:38AM

OneSignal

PostgreSQLRedisRuby+8
9
4721
Jul 9 2019 at 7:22PM

Blue Medora

DockerPostgreSQLNew Relic+8
11
2373
What are some alternatives to PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB?
MySQL
The MySQL software delivers a very fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software.
MariaDB
Started by core members of the original MySQL team, MariaDB actively works with outside developers to deliver the most featureful, stable, and sanely licensed open SQL server in the industry. MariaDB is designed as a drop-in replacement of MySQL(R) with more features, new storage engines, fewer bugs, and better performance.
Oracle
Oracle Database is an RDBMS. An RDBMS that implements object-oriented features such as user-defined types, inheritance, and polymorphism is called an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS). Oracle Database has extended the relational model to an object-relational model, making it possible to store complex business models in a relational database.
MongoDB
MongoDB stores data in JSON-like documents that can vary in structure, offering a dynamic, flexible schema. MongoDB was also designed for high availability and scalability, with built-in replication and auto-sharding.
SQLite
SQLite is an embedded SQL database engine. Unlike most other SQL databases, SQLite does not have a separate server process. SQLite reads and writes directly to ordinary disk files. A complete SQL database with multiple tables, indices, triggers, and views, is contained in a single disk file.
See all alternatives