Blog Columns
Six thematic columns, each with its own dedicated RSS feed.
Database Guru
75posts
Database news, industry surveys, architecture, and best practices.
Cloud-Exiter
66posts
Cloud economics, repatriation, and building sovereign infrastructure.
Postgres Mage
128posts
PostgreSQL ecosystem, internals, extensions, and production tuning.
AI Agent Explorer
98posts
Practical engineering with coding agents, LLMs, AI4DB, and DB4AI.
Travel Notes
12posts
Trips, hikes, landscapes, and field notes across mountains and seas.
Miscellaneous
41posts
Essays, reflections, and personal writing inside and outside of tech.
Pigsty v3.2: The pig CLI, Full ARM Support, Supabase & Grafana Enhancements
Pigsty v3.2 introduces the pig CLI for PostgreSQL package management, complete ARM64 extension repository support, and Supabase & Grafana enhancements.
Pig, The Postgres Extension Wizard
Why would we need yet another package manager for PostgreSQL & extensions?
OpenAI Global Outage Postmortem: K8S Circular Dependencies
Even trillion-dollar unicorns can be a house of cards when operating outside their core expertise.
Solving the 24-Point Card Game with a Single SQL Query
A fun but devious challenge: solve the 24-point card game in SQL. Here is the PostgreSQL answer.
7 Databases in 7 Weeks (2025)
Is PostgreSQL the king of boring databases? Here are seven databases worth studying in 2025: PostgreSQL, SQLite, DuckDB, ClickHouse, FoundationDB, TigerBeetle, and CockroachDB—each deserving a week of …
Self-Hosting Supabase on PostgreSQL
Supabase is great, own your own Supabase is even better. A tutorial for self-hosting production-grade supabase on local/cloud/ VM/BMs.
Pigsty v3.1: One-Click Supabase, PG17 Default, ARM & Ubuntu 24
Pigsty v3.1 makes PostgreSQL 17 the default, delivers one-click Supabase self-hosting, adds ARM64 and Ubuntu 24.04 support, and simplifies configuration management.
Don't Upgrade! Released and Immediately Pulled - Even PostgreSQL Isn't Immune to Epic Fails
Never deploy on Friday, or you'll be working all weekend! PostgreSQL minor releases were pulled on the day of release, requiring emergency rollback.
PostgreSQL 12 End-of-Life, PG 17 Takes the Throne
PG17 achieved extension ecosystem adaptation in half the time of PG16, with 300 available extensions ready for production use. PG 12 officially exits support lifecycle.
The Ideal Way to Deliver PostgreSQL Extensions
PostgreSQL is eating the database world through extensibility. This post introduces the Pigsty extension repository, which packaged 390 PostgreSQL extensions at launch and keeps growing through the …
Open-Source "Tyrant" Linus's Purge
The Linux community is essentially imperial — and Linus himself is the earliest and most successful technical dictator. People are used to Linus's generosity but forget this point.
WordPress Community Civil War: On Community Boundary Demarcation
When open source ideals meet commercial conflicts, what insights can this conflict between open source software communities and cloud vendors bring? On the importance of community boundary …
Cloud Database: Michelin Prices for Cafeteria Pre-made Meals
The paradigm shift brought by RDS, whether cloud databases are overpriced cafeteria meals. Quality, security, efficiency, and cost analysis, cloud exit database self-building: how to implement in …
PostgreSQL 17 Released: No More Pretending!
PostgreSQL is now the world's most advanced open-source database and has become the preferred open-source database for organizations of all sizes, matching or exceeding top commercial databases.
Alibaba-Cloud: High Availability Disaster Recovery Myth Shattered
Seven days after Singapore Zone C failure, availability not even reaching 8, let alone multiple 9s. But compared to data loss, availability is just a minor issue
Optimize Bio Cores First, CPU Cores Second
Programmers are expensive, scarce biological computing cores, the anchor point of software costs — please prioritize optimizing biological cores before optimizing CPU cores.
MongoDB Has No Future: Good Marketing Can't Save a Rotten Mango
MongoDB has a terrible track record on integrity, lackluster products and technology, gets beaten by PG in correctness, performance, and functionality, with collapsing developer reputation, declining …
MongoDB: Now Powered by PostgreSQL?
MongoDB 3.2's analytics subsystem turned out to be an embedded PostgreSQL database? A whistleblowing story from MongoDB's partner about betrayal and disillusionment.
Can PostgreSQL Replace Microsoft SQL Server?
PostgreSQL can directly replace Oracle, SQL Server, and MongoDB at the kernel level. Of course, the most thorough replacement is SQL Server - AWS's Babelfish provides wire-protocol-level …
Pigsty v3.0: Pluggable Kernels & 340 Extensions
Pigsty v3.0 ships 340 extensions across EL/Deb with full parity, adds pluggable kernels (Babelfish, IvorySQL, PolarDB) for MSSQL/Oracle compatibility, and delivers a local-first state-of-the-art RDS …
Amateur Hour Opera: Alibaba-Cloud PostgreSQL Disaster Chronicle
A customer experienced an outrageous cascade of failures on cloud database last week: a high-availability PG RDS cluster went down completely - both primary and replica servers - after attempting a …
What Can We Learn from NetEase Cloud Music's Outage?
NetEase Cloud Music experienced a two-and-a-half-hour outage this afternoon. Based on circulating online clues, we can deduce that the real cause behind this incident was...
Whoever Integrates DuckDB Best Wins the OLAP World
Just like the vector database extension race two years ago, the current PostgreSQL ecosystem extension competition has begun revolving around DuckDB. MotherDuck's official entry into the PostgreSQL …
StackOverflow 2024 Survey: PostgreSQL Has Gone Completely Berserk
The 2024 StackOverflow Global Developer Survey results are fresh out, and PostgreSQL has become the most popular, most loved, and most wanted database globally for the second consecutive year. Nothing …
Pigsty v3.2: The pig CLI, Full ARM Support, Supabase & Grafana Enhancements
Pigsty v3.2 introduces the pig CLI for PostgreSQL package management, complete ARM64 extension repository support, and Supabase & Grafana enhancements.
Pig, The Postgres Extension Wizard
Why would we need yet another package manager for PostgreSQL & extensions?
OpenAI Global Outage Postmortem: K8S Circular Dependencies
Even trillion-dollar unicorns can be a house of cards when operating outside their core expertise.
Solving the 24-Point Card Game with a Single SQL Query
A fun but devious challenge: solve the 24-point card game in SQL. Here is the PostgreSQL answer.
7 Databases in 7 Weeks (2025)
Is PostgreSQL the king of boring databases? Here are seven databases worth studying in 2025: PostgreSQL, SQLite, DuckDB, ClickHouse, FoundationDB, TigerBeetle, and CockroachDB—each deserving a week of …
Self-Hosting Supabase on PostgreSQL
Supabase is great, own your own Supabase is even better. A tutorial for self-hosting production-grade supabase on local/cloud/ VM/BMs.
Pigsty v3.1: One-Click Supabase, PG17 Default, ARM & Ubuntu 24
Pigsty v3.1 makes PostgreSQL 17 the default, delivers one-click Supabase self-hosting, adds ARM64 and Ubuntu 24.04 support, and simplifies configuration management.
Don't Upgrade! Released and Immediately Pulled - Even PostgreSQL Isn't Immune to Epic Fails
Never deploy on Friday, or you'll be working all weekend! PostgreSQL minor releases were pulled on the day of release, requiring emergency rollback.
PostgreSQL 12 End-of-Life, PG 17 Takes the Throne
PG17 achieved extension ecosystem adaptation in half the time of PG16, with 300 available extensions ready for production use. PG 12 officially exits support lifecycle.
The Ideal Way to Deliver PostgreSQL Extensions
PostgreSQL is eating the database world through extensibility. This post introduces the Pigsty extension repository, which packaged 390 PostgreSQL extensions at launch and keeps growing through the …
Open-Source "Tyrant" Linus's Purge
The Linux community is essentially imperial — and Linus himself is the earliest and most successful technical dictator. People are used to Linus's generosity but forget this point.
WordPress Community Civil War: On Community Boundary Demarcation
When open source ideals meet commercial conflicts, what insights can this conflict between open source software communities and cloud vendors bring? On the importance of community boundary …
Cloud Database: Michelin Prices for Cafeteria Pre-made Meals
The paradigm shift brought by RDS, whether cloud databases are overpriced cafeteria meals. Quality, security, efficiency, and cost analysis, cloud exit database self-building: how to implement in …
PostgreSQL 17 Released: No More Pretending!
PostgreSQL is now the world's most advanced open-source database and has become the preferred open-source database for organizations of all sizes, matching or exceeding top commercial databases.
Alibaba-Cloud: High Availability Disaster Recovery Myth Shattered
Seven days after Singapore Zone C failure, availability not even reaching 8, let alone multiple 9s. But compared to data loss, availability is just a minor issue
Optimize Bio Cores First, CPU Cores Second
Programmers are expensive, scarce biological computing cores, the anchor point of software costs — please prioritize optimizing biological cores before optimizing CPU cores.
MongoDB Has No Future: Good Marketing Can't Save a Rotten Mango
MongoDB has a terrible track record on integrity, lackluster products and technology, gets beaten by PG in correctness, performance, and functionality, with collapsing developer reputation, declining …
MongoDB: Now Powered by PostgreSQL?
MongoDB 3.2's analytics subsystem turned out to be an embedded PostgreSQL database? A whistleblowing story from MongoDB's partner about betrayal and disillusionment.
Can PostgreSQL Replace Microsoft SQL Server?
PostgreSQL can directly replace Oracle, SQL Server, and MongoDB at the kernel level. Of course, the most thorough replacement is SQL Server - AWS's Babelfish provides wire-protocol-level …
Pigsty v3.0: Pluggable Kernels & 340 Extensions
Pigsty v3.0 ships 340 extensions across EL/Deb with full parity, adds pluggable kernels (Babelfish, IvorySQL, PolarDB) for MSSQL/Oracle compatibility, and delivers a local-first state-of-the-art RDS …
Amateur Hour Opera: Alibaba-Cloud PostgreSQL Disaster Chronicle
A customer experienced an outrageous cascade of failures on cloud database last week: a high-availability PG RDS cluster went down completely - both primary and replica servers - after attempting a …
What Can We Learn from NetEase Cloud Music's Outage?
NetEase Cloud Music experienced a two-and-a-half-hour outage this afternoon. Based on circulating online clues, we can deduce that the real cause behind this incident was...
Whoever Integrates DuckDB Best Wins the OLAP World
Just like the vector database extension race two years ago, the current PostgreSQL ecosystem extension competition has begun revolving around DuckDB. MotherDuck's official entry into the PostgreSQL …
StackOverflow 2024 Survey: PostgreSQL Has Gone Completely Berserk
The 2024 StackOverflow Global Developer Survey results are fresh out, and PostgreSQL has become the most popular, most loved, and most wanted database globally for the second consecutive year. Nothing …
Pigsty v3.2: The pig CLI, Full ARM Support, Supabase & Grafana Enhancements
GitHub Release | Release Note Pigsty wraps up 2024 with its final release: v3.2. This release brings the pig command-line tool and complete ARM extension support. Together, they deliver silky-smooth PostgreSQL delivery across 10 major Linux …
GitHub Release | Release Note Pigsty wraps up 2024 with its final release: v3.2. This release brings the pig command-line tool and complete ARM extension support. Together, they deliver silky-smooth PostgreSQL delivery across 10 major Linux …
Pig, The Postgres Extension Wizard
Title: Meet Pig: The Postgres Extension Wizard Ever wished installing or upgrading PostgreSQL extensions didn’t feel like digging through outdated readmes, cryptic configure scripts, or random GitHub forks & patches? The painful truth is that …
Title: Meet Pig: The Postgres Extension Wizard Ever wished installing or upgrading PostgreSQL extensions didn’t feel like digging through outdated readmes, cryptic configure scripts, or random GitHub forks & patches? The painful truth is that …
OpenAI Global Outage Postmortem: K8S Circular Dependencies
On December 11th, OpenAI experienced a global service outage affecting ChatGPT, API, Sora, Playground, and Labs. The outage lasted from 3:16 PM to 7:38 PM PT, spanning over four hours with significant impact. According to OpenAI’s incident report …
On December 11th, OpenAI experienced a global service outage affecting ChatGPT, API, Sora, Playground, and Labs. The outage lasted from 3:16 PM to 7:38 PM PT, spanning over four hours with significant impact. According to OpenAI’s incident report …
Solving the 24-Point Card Game with a Single SQL Query
Here is the challenge: Database Programming Contest: Solve the 24-Point Card Game with One SQL Query, hosted by the database tooling platform NineData. There is a table named cards. Its auto-incrementing numeric primary key is id, and it has 4 …
Here is the challenge: Database Programming Contest: Solve the 24-Point Card Game with One SQL Query, hosted by the database tooling platform NineData. There is a table named cards. Its auto-incrementing numeric primary key is id, and it has 4 …
7 Databases in 7 Weeks (2025)
Author: Matt Blewitt, Original: 7 Databases in 7 Weeks (2025) Translator: Feng Ruohang, database veteran, cloud computing mudslide https://matt.blwt.io/post/7-databases-in-7-weeks-for-2025/ For a long time, I’ve been running Databases-as-a-Service, …
Author: Matt Blewitt, Original: 7 Databases in 7 Weeks (2025) Translator: Feng Ruohang, database veteran, cloud computing mudslide https://matt.blwt.io/post/7-databases-in-7-weeks-for-2025/ For a long time, I’ve been running Databases-as-a-Service, …
Self-Hosting Supabase on PostgreSQL
Supabase is great, but having your own Supabase is even better. Pigsty helps you build enterprise-grade Supabase on your own servers (physical/virtual machines/cloud servers) with one-click deployment —more extensions, better performance, deeper …
Supabase is great, but having your own Supabase is even better. Pigsty helps you build enterprise-grade Supabase on your own servers (physical/virtual machines/cloud servers) with one-click deployment —more extensions, better performance, deeper …
Pigsty v3.1: One-Click Supabase, PG17 Default, ARM & Ubuntu 24
GitHub Release | Release Note With PostgreSQL 17.2 released just days ago, Pigsty immediately follows up with v3.1. In this version, PostgreSQL 17 becomes the default major version, with nearly 340 extensions available out of the box. Additionally, …
GitHub Release | Release Note With PostgreSQL 17.2 released just days ago, Pigsty immediately follows up with v3.1. In this version, PostgreSQL 17 becomes the default major version, with nearly 340 extensions available out of the box. Additionally, …
Don't Upgrade! Released and Immediately Pulled - Even PostgreSQL Isn't Immune to Epic Fails
The old saying goes: never deploy code on Friday. The PostgreSQL minor releases issued two days ago deliberately avoided Friday deployment, but still gave the community a week’s worth of extra work — the PostgreSQL community will release an unusual …
The old saying goes: never deploy code on Friday. The PostgreSQL minor releases issued two days ago deliberately avoided Friday deployment, but still gave the community a week’s worth of extra work — the PostgreSQL community will release an unusual …
PostgreSQL 12 End-of-Life, PG 17 Takes the Throne
According to PostgreSQL’s versioning policy, PostgreSQL 12, released in 2019, will officially exit its support lifecycle today (2024-11-14). PG 12’s final minor version is 12.21, released on 2024-11-14, and this will be PG 12’s ultimate version. …
According to PostgreSQL’s versioning policy, PostgreSQL 12, released in 2019, will officially exit its support lifecycle today (2024-11-14). PG 12’s final minor version is 12.21, released on 2024-11-14, and this will be PG 12’s ultimate version. …
The Ideal Way to Deliver PostgreSQL Extensions
PostgreSQL Is Eating the Database World through the power of extensibility. When this post was first published, the repository packaged 390 PostgreSQL extensions as RPM / DEB packages for mainstream Linux distributions. The live Pigsty Extension …
PostgreSQL Is Eating the Database World through the power of extensibility. When this post was first published, the repository packaged 390 PostgreSQL extensions as RPM / DEB packages for mainstream Linux distributions. The live Pigsty Extension …
Open-Source "Tyrant" Linus's Purge
Recently, Linus kicked out several Russian developers from the project, triggering an outcry in the open source world. But many people forget that Linux is Linus’s personal project — it was 30 years ago, and it still is today. Linus himself has …
Recently, Linus kicked out several Russian developers from the project, triggering an outcry in the open source world. But many people forget that Linux is Linus’s personal project — it was 30 years ago, and it still is today. Linus himself has …
WordPress Community Civil War: On Community Boundary Demarcation
“I want to be blunt: for years, we’ve been like fools while they made a fortune off what we developed.” — This famous quote from Redis Labs CEO Ofer Bengal has become a vivid footnote to the WordPress community civil war and the conflict between open …
“I want to be blunt: for years, we’ve been like fools while they made a fortune off what we developed.” — This famous quote from Redis Labs CEO Ofer Bengal has become a vivid footnote to the WordPress community civil war and the conflict between open …
Cloud Database: Michelin Prices for Cafeteria Pre-made Meals
Are cloud databases overpriced cafeteria meals The paradigm shift brought by RDS Quality, security, efficiency, and cost analysis, Cloud exit database self-building: how to implement in practice! TL;DR From commercial software to open source software …
Are cloud databases overpriced cafeteria meals The paradigm shift brought by RDS Quality, security, efficiency, and cost analysis, Cloud exit database self-building: how to implement in practice! TL;DR From commercial software to open source software …
PostgreSQL 17 Released: No More Pretending!
The annual PostgreSQL major version release is here! What surprises does PostgreSQL 17 bring us this time? In this major version release announcement, the PostgreSQL global community has finally come clean — Sorry, no more pretending — “PostgreSQL is …
The annual PostgreSQL major version release is here! What surprises does PostgreSQL 17 bring us this time? In this major version release announcement, the PostgreSQL global community has finally come clean — Sorry, no more pretending — “PostgreSQL is …
Alibaba-Cloud: High Availability Disaster Recovery Myth Shattered
On September 10, 2024, Alibaba-Cloud’s Singapore Availability Zone C data center experienced a fire caused by lithium battery explosion. It’s been a week now and services have not been fully restored yet. According to the monthly SLA availability …
On September 10, 2024, Alibaba-Cloud’s Singapore Availability Zone C data center experienced a fire caused by lithium battery explosion. It’s been a week now and services have not been fully restored yet. According to the monthly SLA availability …
Optimize Bio Cores First, CPU Cores Second
Optimize Bio Cores First, Silicon Cores Second A big part of the reason that companies are going ga-ga over AI right now is the promise that it might materially lower their payroll for programmers. If a company currently needs 10 programmers to do a …
Optimize Bio Cores First, Silicon Cores Second A big part of the reason that companies are going ga-ga over AI right now is the promise that it might materially lower their payroll for programmers. If a company currently needs 10 programmers to do a …
MongoDB Has No Future: Good Marketing Can't Save a Rotten Mango
These past few days, MongoDB’s marketing stunts have been dazzling: “MongoDB Declares War on PostgreSQL”, “MongoDB Defeats PostgreSQL to Win $30 Billion Project”, and the original article from The Register “MongoDB Prepares to Pummel PostgreSQL After …
These past few days, MongoDB’s marketing stunts have been dazzling: “MongoDB Declares War on PostgreSQL”, “MongoDB Defeats PostgreSQL to Win $30 Billion Project”, and the original article from The Register “MongoDB Prepares to Pummel PostgreSQL After …
MongoDB: Now Powered by PostgreSQL?
Preface Tomorrow I’ll publish an article criticizing MongoDB, as a response to their recent malicious marketing that provocatively targets PostgreSQL. But before that, I want to share a brilliant article from 2015 that exposes some of MongoDB’s dark …
Preface Tomorrow I’ll publish an article criticizing MongoDB, as a response to their recent malicious marketing that provocatively targets PostgreSQL. But before that, I want to share a brilliant article from 2015 that exposes some of MongoDB’s dark …
Can PostgreSQL Replace Microsoft SQL Server?
Many people don’t have an intuitive impression of how far PostgreSQL’s ecosystem has developed. Beyond devouring the database world and its all-encompassing extension ecosystem, PostgreSQL can directly replace Oracle, SQL Server, and MongoDB at the …
Many people don’t have an intuitive impression of how far PostgreSQL’s ecosystem has developed. Beyond devouring the database world and its all-encompassing extension ecosystem, PostgreSQL can directly replace Oracle, SQL Server, and MongoDB at the …
Pigsty v3.0: Pluggable Kernels & 340 Extensions
GitHub Release | Release Note Highlights Extension Explosion: Pigsty v3 ships an unprecedented 340 available PostgreSQL extensions. This includes 121 extension RPM packages and 133 DEB packages — more than the total extension count in the official …
GitHub Release | Release Note Highlights Extension Explosion: Pigsty v3 ships an unprecedented 340 available PostgreSQL extensions. This includes 121 extension RPM packages and 133 DEB packages — more than the total extension count in the official …
Amateur Hour Opera: Alibaba-Cloud PostgreSQL Disaster Chronicle
In “Are Cloud Databases an IQ Tax”, I evaluated cloud database RDS as: “selling sky-high pre-made meals at five-star hotel prices” — but legitimate pre-made meals from industrial kitchens are at least edible and generally won’t kill you. However, a …
In “Are Cloud Databases an IQ Tax”, I evaluated cloud database RDS as: “selling sky-high pre-made meals at five-star hotel prices” — but legitimate pre-made meals from industrial kitchens are at least edible and generally won’t kill you. However, a …
What Can We Learn from NetEase Cloud Music's Outage?
This afternoon around 14:44, NetEase Cloud Music experienced an outage, recovering at 17:11. The rumored cause was infrastructure/cloud/ disk storage related issues. Incident Timeline During the outage, NetEase Cloud Music clients could normally play …
This afternoon around 14:44, NetEase Cloud Music experienced an outage, recovering at 17:11. The rumored cause was infrastructure/cloud/ disk storage related issues. Incident Timeline During the outage, NetEase Cloud Music clients could normally play …
Whoever Integrates DuckDB Best Wins the OLAP World
In my article “[PostgreSQL is Eating the Database World],” I posed this question: Who will ultimately unify the database world? I believe it’s the PostgreSQL ecosystem with various extensions — and my judgment is that to conquer OLAP, the largest and …
In my article “[PostgreSQL is Eating the Database World],” I posed this question: Who will ultimately unify the database world? I believe it’s the PostgreSQL ecosystem with various extensions — and my judgment is that to conquer OLAP, the largest and …
StackOverflow 2024 Survey: PostgreSQL Has Gone Completely Berserk
The 2024 StackOverflow Global Developer Survey results are fresh out, with high-quality questionnaire feedback from 60,000 developers across 185 countries and regions. Of course, as a database veteran, I’m most interested in the “Database” section of …
The 2024 StackOverflow Global Developer Survey results are fresh out, with high-quality questionnaire feedback from 60,000 developers across 185 countries and regions. Of course, as a database veteran, I’m most interested in the “Database” section of …