2024 State of PostgreSQL Survey

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State of

Postgresql 2024

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Sections

PostgreSQL experiences PostgreSQL at work Use Cases Community

Ecosystem and tools Postgresql and Ai Supporters Methodology

Summary

In a world where software longevity isn’t long at all, the resilience of PostgreSQL, one of the world’s leading open-source databases, is nothing short of remarkable. With more than 30 years of active development, PostgreSQL has stood the test of time, establishing a rich ecosystem of connectors and tools, honing a second-to-none developer experience, and maintaining the unmatched reliability it is well-known for.

These and other features have earned the open-source database a loyal following of enthusiasts and contributors, of which Timescale is proud to be a part of. Currently in its fifth edition, the State of PostgreSQL survey is our way of giving back to a community that has always supported us. By sharing the users’ experience with PostgreSQL and how it’s evolving, we hope to make it more inclusive, innovative, and successful.

This year we had a total of 688 respondents take the survey, and here are some of the takeaways:

Shifts in new user adoption has decreased noticeably. Respondents with less than 1 year of experience dropped to 4.1% (from 8.1%), while those with 1-2 years fell to 8.4% (from 15.7%).
AI usage among PostgreSQL developers has surged, with 55.3% now using AI tools, up from 36.9% in 2023. Meanwhile, non-AI users dropped from 63% to 44.7%, marking a significant shift toward AI integration as a standard part of development workflows.
This year, 60% of respondents reported using PostgreSQL for both personal and professional projects—a 20% increase from last year, highlighting its versatility across use cases.

We hope these insights pique your interest in the complete report. Keep reading to learn what the State of PostgreSQL is in 2024.

Experiences

What is your primary geographical location?

Mirroring all previous survey results, respondents from EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) account for over half of all respondents, North America is second on the list at 25% (mimicking 2022 results), and APAC (Asia-Pacific) taking a seven point dip from last year (12%).

How long have you been using PostgreSQL?

The 2024 survey shows a growing number of experienced users, with those having 15+ years of experience increasing to 21%, up from 11% in 2023. Mid-range users, such as those with 5-10 years, remain steady at 25% (up slightly from 23%), while 10-15 years rose slightly to 15% from 12%.

However, new user adoption has declined sharply. Those with less than 1 year dropped to just 4.1% (from 8.1%), and 1-2 years fell to 8.4% (from 15.7%). Users with 2-5 years also saw a decline, dropping to 25.4% from 28.6%. These trends reflect a maturing PostgreSQL community, with growth concentrated among seasoned users.

What is the main reason you chose to use PostgreSQL over other options?

For the fourth year in a row, the top reason developers choose PostgreSQL is its open-source nature, offering transparency, flexibility, and community-driven innovation. Close behind, reliability ranked second, with 62% of respondents emphasizing its trusted performance.

At 55%, many also valued PostgreSQL's use of SQL, a widely understood and accessible query language. Interestingly, while feature set ranked highly in 2023, it slipped this year, reflecting a shift toward prioritizing stability and reliability over additional capabilities.

These insights highlight PostgreSQL's enduring appeal as a reliable, open-source solution tailored for modern development.

Have you ever contributed to PostgreSQL?

Over half of the participants (58%) said that they have never contributed to PostgreSQL or to the community. Of the remaining responses most people contribute to the community as advocates (17%), submitting bug reports (16%), participating in user groups or as meetup hosts (11%), followed by documentation (9%). These are just the top four ways the PostgreSQL community gives back.

at work

Compared to one year ago, is PostgreSQL being used more or less?

This year 60% of responses to this question said they use PostgreSQL for both professional and personal use.

46% of those using PostgreSQL in a professional capacity say that they are using it more or a lot more than a year ago. And of those using it for personal projects, 35% say they’re using it more or a lot more than they were a year ago.

use cases

Do you use Postgresql for personal or professional purposes?

This year the number of respondents reporting they use PostgreSQL for personal projects went way down to 3% from 73% in 2023. The number of people using it for professional projects also went down four percentage points to 36%. However, 60% of all respondents said they use it for both, which is 20 percentage points more than last year.

Not surprisingly, App development, dashboarding, and monitoring remain in the top 3 spots for personal and professional use cases, mirroring last year’s results. This year, real-time analytics creeps up to the number four spot, replacing IoT applications in 2023.

How would you classify your personal and professional use case?

Community

How would you rate your ability to connect with the PostgreSQL community?

As opposed to last year’s numbers, respondents are finding it slightly easier to connect to the community than in previous years, with Medium (43%) and Extremely easy (18%) responses up by two percentage points from 2023.

ability-to-connect-with-postgresql-community

In your experience, what’s the best thing about the PostgreSQL community/what do you like the most?

55% of respondents shared 1 or more aspects of the community they like the most.

Attending any Postgres event feels like there are always A bunch of friendly approachable experts that I can ask and talk with. I Have gathered some people I know during the years, even if nowadays I have less time for community due to family.

It works for whatever I throw at it. And fast!

I still remember being a newbie joining my first ever PGConf.EU, it was intimidating being one of the few women in the room but I always felt welcomed. I like how connected the Postgres community is, there is a sense of friendship I cannot find in other communities.

It is not dominated by any one company - conference talks, blog posts, and podcasts feel as though they are trying to educate rather than just sell me something.

What one change would you most want to see in the community to make contributing easier?

31% of respondents shared 1 or more aspects of the community where they see challenges and room for improvement.. We have included an assortment of responses below.

Move from mailing list chaos to a project management system. As a first step, break up pgsql-hackers into multiple interest areas. It is completely unmanageable and overwhelming.

Move to GitHub.

A step-by-step guide on how can anyone contribute, and maybe some sandboxes for testing and learning how to contribute.

I think THE Postgres Code of Conduct is in dire need of an update. Once it feels safer for everyone, it will be easier to contribute in every aspect.

Ecosystem and tools

What is your favorite PostgreSQL feature?

What languages do you most frequently use to access PostgreSQL?

The majority of survey takers said that SQL (57%) was their language of choice, followed by Python (47%), Shell scripts (23%), JavaScript or Typescript (22%), and Go (20%) in the top five. Consistent with responses from the previous two years, SQL, Python, Java, and JavaScript/TypeScript were cited as the most commonly used languages to access PostgreSQL. New to the top five list is Shell Scripts.

Which of the following tools do you use most often to connect to PostgreSQL for querying and administration tasks?

tools-used-for-querying-and-administration-tasks

Responses to this question are consistent with results from 2022 and 2024. Again we are seeing psql, pgAdmin, and DBeaver are all in the top three. Visual Studio Code (13%) overtakes Datagrip (10%) and IntelliJ (9%) this year and a special welcome to PopSQL (1%), new to the top 10 list.

PostgreSQL and AI

Have you used Postgresql and pgvector as a solution for an ai application?

Which AI tools are you using or plan to use in your development process?

72% of respondents to this question mentioned using ChatGPT, with the next most popular response being GitHub Copilot and Claude.ai.

Supporters

Thank you to everyone who promoted the State of PostgreSQL 2024 survey.

Methodology

Since 2019 (minus a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic), we’ve been asking questions about the PostgreSQL community’s experience with their database of choice and using them to produce this report.

In case you don’t know us, we’re Timescale—the company behind TimescaleDB, the relational database for time-series, events, and AI. This year we ran our State of PostgreSQL survey for two months (September 1 through October 31), and 688 people provided responses. We then aggregated those results to create this report.

This year, we sent the survey to past participants and promoted it on social media, email newsletters (our own and third-party), Timescale and PostgreSQL Slack channels, PostgreSQL mailing lists, and Reddit.

Of course, we didn’t do this on our own, we quadrupled our list of partners this year that also sent the survey to their audiences, amplifying our reach and enabling us to connect with developers across multiple channels.

Community members: Jimmy Angelakos, Andrew Atkinson, Ryan Booz, Software & Booz, Elizabeth Christensen, Henrietta Dombrovskaya, Floor Drees, Stefan Fercot, Douglas Hunley, Gülçin Yıldırım Jelinek, Valeria Kaplan, Jan Karremans, Philip Marks, Doug Ortiz, Tech Bits, Steven Pousty, Anastasia Raspopina, Daniel Sarosi, Jeremy Schneider, Stefanie Janine Stölting, Shaun Thomas

Companies: Aiven, Basedash CYBERTEC, Data Bene, DataCloudGaze, Data Egret, Device Insight, EDB, KM.ON, Mark Gurry Associates, Neon, ParadeDB, PG Weekly, Plotly, ProOpenSource OÜ, Simplyblock, Tembo, Timbira, Trebellar, United Manufacturing Hub, Xata

Communities : Barcelona PostgreSQL User Groups, Kadin Yazilimci, Madrid PostgreSQL User Groups, PgDay CMH, PG Day Chicago, Prague PostgreSQL Meetup

Thank you, supporters, for your dedication to knowledge-sharing and community building. We couldn’t do this without you!

This year’s survey includes many of the same questions we asked in prior years to capture how responses evolve over time (we’ve noted where the question format changed). We also included new questions about learning resources, third-party tools, production systems, and the use of AI.

Please note that some of the percentages are rounded to the nearest full number for simplicity. We made minor grammatical edits to featured responses (e.g., capitalization, punctuation) but did not change the wording. The raw data includes wholly unedited responses.

This is the fifth State of PostgreSQL report. Check out the second, third, and fourth report editions.

We look forward to issuing the survey annually and continuing to provide valuable insights for both new and experienced PostgreSQL users.

Thanks for reading