The true cost of running PostgreSQL in-house
PostgreSQL doesn’t come with a price tag, but that doesn’t mean it’s free to run.
The real cost isn't in licensing; it's in the time, effort, and expertise needed to keep it performing at an enterprise level. The hours your team spends troubleshooting slow queries, managing replication, tuning performance, and responding to unexpected issues add up quickly.
Many teams think they'll "figure it out as they go," but PostgreSQL demands constant attention. As your environment grows more complex, your team gets pulled away from strategic work to focus on keeping the database running.
PostgreSQL experts are hard to find and expensive to keep
Finding the right talent creates another challenge:
- Top PostgreSQL specialists remain in short supply, and you might search for months to find someone who truly understands scaling, performance tuning, and high availability.
- When you can't find PostgreSQL experts, you'll likely rely on IT generalists. Without specialized database knowledge, even small configuration mistakes can cause outages, create security vulnerabilities, and kill performance.
- You could train your current staff, but developing real PostgreSQL expertise at an enterprise scale takes years of hands-on experience with large systems.
The ongoing cost of maintenance and management
Your PostgreSQL database won't take care of itself:
- Queries that run perfectly today will slow down tomorrow as your data grows, indexes become bloated, and execution plans change unexpectedly.
- Keeping your database secure requires constant vigilance. Configuration mistakes, overly permissive access settings, or missing security patches can open doors to costly data breaches.
- Your backup and recovery plans need regular testing. Assuming they'll work in a crisis is a gamble many teams lose when disaster actually strikes.
Downtime and performance issues have real costs
When PostgreSQL slows down or crashes, the impact goes beyond your IT team:
- Slow databases directly affect your revenue, so when your checkout page stalls or your payment processing lags, customers leave, and sales drop immediately.
- Unexpected downtime creates emergency situations. Without a proper high availability setup, even minor problems can take hours to fix while your business operations grind to a halt.
- Engineering time spent fixing database issues is time not spent building your product. When your developers focus on database troubleshooting instead of new features, your "free" database becomes surprisingly expensive.
The real question: Is your team ready for the full burden of PostgreSQL?
PostgreSQL is a powerful database, but keeping it optimized, secure, and highly available takes dedicated resources. Most teams don't realize how much work it requires until they're already struggling with serious operational problems.
The question isn't whether PostgreSQL can technically work for your business; it's whether your team has the time, expertise, and resources to manage it properly over the long term.
Enter Percona for PostgreSQL.