PostgreSQL 14 Released
(30 September 2021)

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PostgreSQL 14 Released
PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source object-relational database system with over 30 years of active development that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the Ingres database developed at the University of California, Berkeley. They like to refer to PostgreSQL as "The World's Most Advanced Open Source Relational Database".

PostgreSQL 14 brings a variety of features that help developers and administrators deploy their data-backed applications. PostgreSQL continues to add innovations on complex data types, including more convenient access for JSON and support for noncontiguous ranges of data. This latest release adds to PostgreSQL's trend on improving high performance and distributed data workloads, with advances in connection concurrency, high-write workloads, query parallelism and logical replication.

"This latest release of PostgreSQL advances our users' ability to manage data workloads at scale, enhances observability, and contains new features that help application developers," said Magnus Hagander, a PostgreSQL Core Team member. "PostgreSQL 14 is a testament to the dedication of the global PostgreSQL community in addressing feedback and continuing to deliver innovative database software that is deployed by organizations large and small."

PostgreSQL has earned a strong reputation for its proven architecture, reliability, data integrity, robust feature set, extensibility, and the dedication of the open source community behind the software to consistently deliver performant and innovative solutions and runs on all major operating systems.

PostgreSQL comes with many features aimed to help developers build applications, administrators to protect data integrity and build fault-tolerant environments, and help you manage your data no matter how big or small the dataset. In addition to being free and open source, PostgreSQL is highly extensible. For example, you can define your own data types, build out custom functions, even write code from different programming languages without recompiling your database!

PostgreSQL tries to conform with the SQL standard where such conformance does not contradict traditional features or could lead to poor architectural decisions. Many of the features required by the SQL standard are supported, though sometimes with slightly differing syntax or function. Further moves towards conformance can be expected over time. As of the version 14 release in September 2021, PostgreSQL conforms to at least 170 of the 179 mandatory features for SQL:2016 Core conformance. As of this writing, no relational database meets full conformance with this standard.

Below is an inexhaustive list of various features found in PostgreSQL, with more being added in every major release:
  • Data Types
    • Primitives: Integer, Numeric, String, Boolean
    • Structured: Date/Time, Array, Range / Multirange, UUID
    • Document: JSON/JSONB, XML, Key-value (Hstore)
    • Geometry: Point, Line, Circle, Polygon
    • Customizations: Composite, Custom Types
  • Data Integrity
    • UNIQUE, NOT NULL
    • Primary Keys
    • Foreign Keys
    • Exclusion Constraints
    • Explicit Locks, Advisory Locks
  • Concurrency, Performance
    • Indexing: B-tree, Multicolumn, Expressions, Partial
    • Advanced Indexing: GiST, SP-Gist, KNN Gist, GIN, BRIN, Covering indexes, Bloom filters
    • Sophisticated query planner / optimizer, index-only scans, multicolumn statistics
    • Transactions, Nested Transactions (via savepoints)
    • Multi-Version concurrency Control (MVCC)
    • Parallelization of read queries and building B-tree indexes
    • Table partitioning
    • All transaction isolation levels defined in the SQL standard, including Serializable
    • Just-in-time (JIT) compilation of expressions
  • Reliability, Disaster Recovery
    • Write-ahead Logging (WAL)
    • Replication: Asynchronous, Synchronous, Logical
    • Point-in-time-recovery (PITR), active standbys
    • Tablespaces
  • Security
    • Authentication: GSSAPI, SSPI, LDAP, SCRAM-SHA-256, Certificate, and more
    • Robust access-control system
    • Column and row-level security
    • Multi-factor authentication with certificates and an additional method
  • Extensibility
    • Stored functions and procedures
    • Procedural Languages: PL/PGSQL, Perl, Python (and many more)
    • SQL/JSON path expressions
    • Foreign data wrappers: connect to other databases or streams with a standard SQL interface
    • Customizable storage interface for tables
    • Many extensions that provide additional functionality, including PostGIS
  • Internationalisation, Text Search
    • Support for international character sets, e.g. through ICU collations
    • Case-insensitive and accent-insensitive collations
    • Full-text search

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