9. Underestimating the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

PostgreSQL's open source license delivers immediate savings compared to the expensive licensing fees of Oracle, SQL Server, and other proprietary databases. However, proprietary vendors often mislead customers about the true long-term costs of their solutions. They emphasize "predictable" licensing while hiding the reality of forced upgrades, expensive add-ons for basic functionality, and consulting services required to maintain performance.

Consider this: The true cost gap between PostgreSQL and proprietary databases is often much wider than initial comparisons suggest. Proprietary vendors typically charge premium fees for features PostgreSQL includes by default—high availability, advanced security, performance monitoring, and disaster recovery. As your data grows, proprietary vendors increase costs through complex licensing metrics based on cores, users, or data volume, while PostgreSQL's costs scale more predictably with your actual infrastructure needs.