You've chosen or are considering PostgreSQL for your build, as it gives you complete control. There are no restrictive licenses or vendor lock-in issues to worry about when it's actually open source and not a vendor-controlled fork. You get a powerful, open source database that adapts to what you need. But this freedom comes with a catch as your business grows: increasing complexity.

What seemed like a straightforward decision now comes with clear trade-offs as you build and scale. Performance tuning turns into a full-time job. High availability requires constant oversight. Audits expose security gaps. And when something goes wrong, finding the root cause isn’t quick or easy; it pulls your team away from everything else.

PostgreSQL remains an excellent database choice, but managing it at scale requires significant resources you might not have anticipated.