Blog Columns
Six thematic columns, each with its own dedicated RSS feed.
Database Guru
75posts
Database news, industry surveys, architecture, and best practices.
Cloud-Exiter
66posts
Cloud economics, repatriation, and building sovereign infrastructure.
Postgres Mage
126posts
PostgreSQL ecosystem, internals, extensions, and production tuning.
AI Agent Explorer
97posts
Practical engineering with coding agents, LLMs, AI4DB, and DB4AI.
Travel Notes
12posts
Trips, hikes, landscapes, and field notes across mountains and seas.
Miscellaneous
40posts
Essays, reflections, and personal writing inside and outside of tech.
Where Will Databases and DBAs Go in the AI Era?
Who will be revolutionized first - OLTP or OLAP? Integration vs specialization, how to choose? Where will DBAs go in the AI era? Feng's views from the HOW 2025 conference roundtable, organized and …
Pigsty v3.5: 4K Stars, PG18 Beta, 421 Extensions
Pigsty crosses 4K GitHub stars, adds PG18 beta support, pushes extensions to 421, ships new doc site, and completes OrioleDB/OpenHalo full-platform support.
Stop Arguing, The AI Era Database Has Been Settled
The database for the AI era has been settled. Capital markets are making intensive moves on PostgreSQL targets, with PG having become the default database for the AI era.
Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI
At PGConf.Dev 2025, Bohan Zhang from OpenAI shared a session titled Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI, giving us a peek into the database usage of a top-tier unicorn.
How Many Shops Has etcd Torched?
Plenty. If you’re rolling your own Kubernetes, odds are you’ll crash because etcd ships with a 2 GB time bomb.
In the AI Era, Software Starts at the Database
Future software = Agent + Database. No middle tiers, just agents issuing CRUD. Database skills age well, and PostgreSQL is poised to be the agent-era default.
MySQL vs. PostgreSQL @ 2025
A 2025 reality check on where PostgreSQL stands relative to MySQL across features, performance, quality, and ecosystem.
Postgres Extension Day - See You There!
The annual PostgreSQL developer conference will be held in Montreal in May. Like the first PG Con.Dev, there's also an additional dedicated event - Postgres Extensions Day
OrioleDB is Coming! 4x Performance, Eliminates Pain Points, Storage-Compute Separation
A PG kernel fork acquired by Supabase, claiming to solve PG's XID wraparound problem, eliminate table bloat issues, improve performance by 4x, and support cloud-native storage. Now part of the Pigsty …
OpenHalo: MySQL Wire-Compatible PostgreSQL is Here!
What? PostgreSQL can now be accessed using MySQL clients? That's right, openHalo, which was open-sourced on April Fool's Day, provides exactly this capability and has now joined the Pigsty kernel …
Dify Gets Humiliated Again: It Can't Catch a Break
Livzon Pharmaceutical's logo-swapping PR landed out of nowhere. As if being ripped off by DeepSeek appliance vendors were not enough, someone marched into Dify's own repository to rub it in. Dify just …
PGFS: Using Database as a Filesystem
Leverage JuiceFS to turn PostgreSQL into a filesystem with PITR capabilities!
Pigsty v3.4: PITR Enhancement, Locale Best Practices, Auto Certificates
Pigsty v3.4 adds pgBackRest backup monitoring, cross-cluster PITR restore, automated HTTPS certificates, locale best practices, and full-platform IvorySQL and Apache AGE support.
Database Planet Collision: When PG Falls for DuckDB
If you ask me, we’re on the brink of a cosmic collision in database-land, and Postgres + DuckDB is the meteor we should all be watching.
Alicloud’s rds_duckdb: Tribute or Rip-Off?
Does bolting DuckDB onto RDS suddenly make open-source Postgres ‘trash’? Business and open source should be symbiotic. If a vendor only extracts without giving back, the community will spit it out."
Comparing Oracle and PostgreSQL Transaction Systems
The PG community has started punching up: Cybertec's Laurenz Albe breaks down how Oracle's transaction system stacks against PostgreSQL.
Pigsty v3.3: 404 Extensions, Turnkey Apps, New Website
Pigsty v3.3 pushes available extensions to 404, adds turnkey app deployment with app.yml, delivers Certbot integration for automated HTTPS, and launches a redesigned website.
PostgreSQL Ecosystem Frontier Developments
Sharing some interesting recent developments in the PG ecosystem.
Database as Business Architecture
Databases are the core of business architecture, but what happens if we go further and let databases become the business architecture itself?
Escaping Cloud Computing Scam Mills: The Big Fool Paying for Pain
A user consulted about distributed databases, but he wasn't dealing with data bursting through server cabinet doors—rather, he'd fallen into another cloud computing pig-butchering scam.
Pigsty v3.2: The pig CLI, Full ARM Support, Supabase & Grafana Enhancements
Pigsty v3.2 introduces the pig CLI for PostgreSQL package management, complete ARM64 extension repository support, and Supabase & Grafana enhancements.
Pig, The Postgres Extension Wizard
Why would we need yet another package manager for PostgreSQL & extensions?
OpenAI Global Outage Postmortem: K8S Circular Dependencies
Even trillion-dollar unicorns can be a house of cards when operating outside their core expertise.
Solving the 24-Point Card Game with a Single SQL Query
A fun but devious challenge: solve the 24-point card game in SQL. Here is the PostgreSQL answer.
Where Will Databases and DBAs Go in the AI Era?
Who will be revolutionized first - OLTP or OLAP? Integration vs specialization, how to choose? Where will DBAs go in the AI era? Feng's views from the HOW 2025 conference roundtable, organized and …
Pigsty v3.5: 4K Stars, PG18 Beta, 421 Extensions
Pigsty crosses 4K GitHub stars, adds PG18 beta support, pushes extensions to 421, ships new doc site, and completes OrioleDB/OpenHalo full-platform support.
Stop Arguing, The AI Era Database Has Been Settled
The database for the AI era has been settled. Capital markets are making intensive moves on PostgreSQL targets, with PG having become the default database for the AI era.
Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI
At PGConf.Dev 2025, Bohan Zhang from OpenAI shared a session titled Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI, giving us a peek into the database usage of a top-tier unicorn.
How Many Shops Has etcd Torched?
Plenty. If you’re rolling your own Kubernetes, odds are you’ll crash because etcd ships with a 2 GB time bomb.
In the AI Era, Software Starts at the Database
Future software = Agent + Database. No middle tiers, just agents issuing CRUD. Database skills age well, and PostgreSQL is poised to be the agent-era default.
MySQL vs. PostgreSQL @ 2025
A 2025 reality check on where PostgreSQL stands relative to MySQL across features, performance, quality, and ecosystem.
Postgres Extension Day - See You There!
The annual PostgreSQL developer conference will be held in Montreal in May. Like the first PG Con.Dev, there's also an additional dedicated event - Postgres Extensions Day
OrioleDB is Coming! 4x Performance, Eliminates Pain Points, Storage-Compute Separation
A PG kernel fork acquired by Supabase, claiming to solve PG's XID wraparound problem, eliminate table bloat issues, improve performance by 4x, and support cloud-native storage. Now part of the Pigsty …
OpenHalo: MySQL Wire-Compatible PostgreSQL is Here!
What? PostgreSQL can now be accessed using MySQL clients? That's right, openHalo, which was open-sourced on April Fool's Day, provides exactly this capability and has now joined the Pigsty kernel …
Dify Gets Humiliated Again: It Can't Catch a Break
Livzon Pharmaceutical's logo-swapping PR landed out of nowhere. As if being ripped off by DeepSeek appliance vendors were not enough, someone marched into Dify's own repository to rub it in. Dify just …
PGFS: Using Database as a Filesystem
Leverage JuiceFS to turn PostgreSQL into a filesystem with PITR capabilities!
Pigsty v3.4: PITR Enhancement, Locale Best Practices, Auto Certificates
Pigsty v3.4 adds pgBackRest backup monitoring, cross-cluster PITR restore, automated HTTPS certificates, locale best practices, and full-platform IvorySQL and Apache AGE support.
Database Planet Collision: When PG Falls for DuckDB
If you ask me, we’re on the brink of a cosmic collision in database-land, and Postgres + DuckDB is the meteor we should all be watching.
Alicloud’s rds_duckdb: Tribute or Rip-Off?
Does bolting DuckDB onto RDS suddenly make open-source Postgres ‘trash’? Business and open source should be symbiotic. If a vendor only extracts without giving back, the community will spit it out."
Comparing Oracle and PostgreSQL Transaction Systems
The PG community has started punching up: Cybertec's Laurenz Albe breaks down how Oracle's transaction system stacks against PostgreSQL.
Pigsty v3.3: 404 Extensions, Turnkey Apps, New Website
Pigsty v3.3 pushes available extensions to 404, adds turnkey app deployment with app.yml, delivers Certbot integration for automated HTTPS, and launches a redesigned website.
PostgreSQL Ecosystem Frontier Developments
Sharing some interesting recent developments in the PG ecosystem.
Database as Business Architecture
Databases are the core of business architecture, but what happens if we go further and let databases become the business architecture itself?
Escaping Cloud Computing Scam Mills: The Big Fool Paying for Pain
A user consulted about distributed databases, but he wasn't dealing with data bursting through server cabinet doors—rather, he'd fallen into another cloud computing pig-butchering scam.
Pigsty v3.2: The pig CLI, Full ARM Support, Supabase & Grafana Enhancements
Pigsty v3.2 introduces the pig CLI for PostgreSQL package management, complete ARM64 extension repository support, and Supabase & Grafana enhancements.
Pig, The Postgres Extension Wizard
Why would we need yet another package manager for PostgreSQL & extensions?
OpenAI Global Outage Postmortem: K8S Circular Dependencies
Even trillion-dollar unicorns can be a house of cards when operating outside their core expertise.
Solving the 24-Point Card Game with a Single SQL Query
A fun but devious challenge: solve the 24-point card game in SQL. Here is the PostgreSQL answer.
Where Will Databases and DBAs Go in the AI Era?
The day before yesterday at the HOW 2025 conference roundtable, Chairman Xiao asked some interesting questions about AI, databases, and DBAs. Here are Feng’s views, organized and published. OLTP / OLAP: Who Gets Revolutionized First? Question: In …
The day before yesterday at the HOW 2025 conference roundtable, Chairman Xiao asked some interesting questions about AI, databases, and DBAs. Here are Feng’s views, organized and published. OLTP / OLAP: Who Gets Revolutionized First? Question: In …
Pigsty v3.5: 4K Stars, PG18 Beta, 421 Extensions
GitHub Release | Release Note Pigsty v3.5 is officially released. The project has crossed the 4,000+ Star milestone on GitHub — a remarkable achievement for a database infrastructure project. This version brings a brand-new documentation website, …
GitHub Release | Release Note Pigsty v3.5 is officially released. The project has crossed the 4,000+ Star milestone on GitHub — a remarkable achievement for a database infrastructure project. This version brings a brand-new documentation website, …
Stop Arguing, The AI Era Database Has Been Settled
This morning, the industry exploded with news of an acquisition. Following Databricks’ $1 billion acquisition of Neon, its rival Snowflake immediately followed by acquiring CrunchyData. According to insiders, this deal was priced at $250 million. …
This morning, the industry exploded with news of an acquisition. Following Databricks’ $1 billion acquisition of Neon, its rival Snowflake immediately followed by acquiring CrunchyData. According to insiders, this deal was priced at $250 million. …
Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI
At PGConf.Dev 2025, Bohan Zhang from OpenAI shared a session titled Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI, giving us a peek into the database usage of a top-tier unicorn. “At OpenAl, we’ve proven that PostgreSQL can scale to support massive …
At PGConf.Dev 2025, Bohan Zhang from OpenAI shared a session titled Scaling Postgres to the next level at OpenAI, giving us a peek into the database usage of a top-tier unicorn. “At OpenAl, we’ve proven that PostgreSQL can scale to support massive …
How Many Shops Has etcd Torched?
A few days ago Yingshi Hurricane shared their Pigsty/PostgreSQL HA incident. The root cause? etcd hit its default 2 GB limit because auto-compaction wasn’t enabled. As @ayanamist put it on X: “Let’s see how many companies this stupid 2 GB design can …
A few days ago Yingshi Hurricane shared their Pigsty/PostgreSQL HA incident. The root cause? etcd hit its default 2 GB limit because auto-compaction wasn’t enabled. As @ayanamist put it on X: “Let’s see how many companies this stupid 2 GB design can …
In the AI Era, Software Starts at the Database
WeChat The future stack is “Agent + Database.” No front-end/back-end toll booths—agents talk CRUD straight to storage. Database skills hold their value, and PostgreSQL is the database of the agent era. SaaS is dead? Software begins with the DB GenAI …
WeChat The future stack is “Agent + Database.” No front-end/back-end toll booths—agents talk CRUD straight to storage. Database skills hold their value, and PostgreSQL is the database of the agent era. SaaS is dead? Software begins with the DB GenAI …
MySQL vs. PostgreSQL @ 2025
In 2025, PostgreSQL has opened a clear lead over MySQL on features, correctness, performance, and ecosystem—and the gap keeps widening. Here’s the panoramic view. Features Release cadence MySQL just dropped “Innovation” 9.3 (release notes), yet the …
In 2025, PostgreSQL has opened a clear lead over MySQL on features, correctness, performance, and ecosystem—and the gap keeps widening. Here’s the panoramic view. Features Release cadence MySQL just dropped “Innovation” 9.3 (release notes), yet the …
Postgres Extension Day - See You There!
The annual PostgreSQL developer conference will be held in Montreal in May. Like the first PG Con.Dev, there’s also an additional dedicated event - Postgres Extensions Day, focusing on all aspects of PG extension development, delivery, and release. …
The annual PostgreSQL developer conference will be held in Montreal in May. Like the first PG Con.Dev, there’s also an additional dedicated event - Postgres Extensions Day, focusing on all aspects of PG extension development, delivery, and release. …
OrioleDB is Coming! 4x Performance, Eliminates Pain Points, Storage-Compute Separation
OrioleDB, which sounds interesting - though “Oriole” means a type of bird (黄鹂 in Chinese), so it should actually be translated as “Oriole Database” rather than “Cookie Database” or “Bird Database”. The name doesn’t matter much; what’s important is …
OrioleDB, which sounds interesting - though “Oriole” means a type of bird (黄鹂 in Chinese), so it should actually be translated as “Oriole Database” rather than “Cookie Database” or “Bird Database”. The name doesn’t matter much; what’s important is …
OpenHalo: MySQL Wire-Compatible PostgreSQL is Here!
What? PostgreSQL can now be accessed using MySQL clients? That’s right, openHalo, which was open-sourced on April Fool’s Day, provides exactly this capability — allowing users to simultaneously access and manage the same database using both MySQL and …
What? PostgreSQL can now be accessed using MySQL clients? That’s right, openHalo, which was open-sourced on April Fool’s Day, provides exactly this capability — allowing users to simultaneously access and manage the same database using both MySQL and …
Dify Gets Humiliated Again: It Can't Catch a Break
Today, something straight out of magical realism unfolded in Dify’s GitHub repository. The open-source community was minding its own business, maintaining the project, when a pull request apparently from Livzon Pharmaceutical landed out of …
Today, something straight out of magical realism unfolded in Dify’s GitHub repository. The open-source community was minding its own business, maintaining the project, when a pull request apparently from Livzon Pharmaceutical landed out of …
PGFS: Using Database as a Filesystem
A few days ago, I received a request from the Odoo community asking: “Databases support PITR (Point-in-Time Recovery), but is there a way to roll back the filesystem as well?” Why the “PGFS” Idea? From a veteran database engineer’s perspective, this …
A few days ago, I received a request from the Odoo community asking: “Databases support PITR (Point-in-Time Recovery), but is there a way to roll back the filesystem as well?” Why the “PGFS” Idea? From a veteran database engineer’s perspective, this …
Pigsty v3.4: PITR Enhancement, Locale Best Practices, Auto Certificates
GitHub Release | Release Note After a month of intensive development, Pigsty v3.4 is officially released. This version features significant architectural optimizations, addressing several core concerns highly valued by users and customers: Restore …
GitHub Release | Release Note After a month of intensive development, Pigsty v3.4 is officially released. This version features significant architectural optimizations, addressing several core concerns highly valued by users and customers: Restore …
Database Planet Collision: When PG Falls for DuckDB
When I published “PostgreSQL Is Eating the Database World” last year, I tossed out this wild idea: Could Postgres really unify OLTP and OLAP? I had no clue we’d see fireworks so quickly. The PG community’s now in an all-out frenzy to stitch DuckDB …
When I published “PostgreSQL Is Eating the Database World” last year, I tossed out this wild idea: Could Postgres really unify OLTP and OLAP? I had no clue we’d see fireworks so quickly. The PG community’s now in an all-out frenzy to stitch DuckDB …
Alicloud’s rds_duckdb: Tribute or Rip-Off?
A viral post titled “Heavenly ‘PostgreSQL’ Calls Earthly Postgres ‘Little Trash’” hyped up Alicloud RDS’s new rds_duckdb plugin for OLAP and declared that managed RDS PG is noble while open-source Postgres is garbage. That take is ridiculous. I know …
A viral post titled “Heavenly ‘PostgreSQL’ Calls Earthly Postgres ‘Little Trash’” hyped up Alicloud RDS’s new rds_duckdb plugin for OLAP and declared that managed RDS PG is noble while open-source Postgres is garbage. That take is ridiculous. I know …
Comparing Oracle and PostgreSQL Transaction Systems
Original by Laurenz Albe. Translation and commentary by Feng Ruohang. Transactions sit at the heart of relational databases. They guarantee data integrity for applications. SQL defines some transactional behavior but leaves plenty unspecified, so …
Original by Laurenz Albe. Translation and commentary by Feng Ruohang. Transactions sit at the heart of relational databases. They guarantee data integrity for applications. SQL defines some transactional behavior but leaves plenty unspecified, so …
Pigsty v3.3: 404 Extensions, Turnkey Apps, New Website
GitHub Release | Release Note After two months of careful refinement, Pigsty v3.3 is officially released. As an open-source “batteries-included” PostgreSQL distribution, Pigsty aims to harness the collective power of the PG ecosystem, delivering a …
GitHub Release | Release Note After two months of careful refinement, Pigsty v3.3 is officially released. As an open-source “batteries-included” PostgreSQL distribution, Pigsty aims to harness the collective power of the PG ecosystem, delivering a …
PostgreSQL Ecosystem Frontier Developments
Dear readers, I’m starting my vacation today. I might stop posting for two weeks, so Happy New Year in advance. Of course, before starting vacation, this article shares some interesting recent developments in the PG ecosystem. Yesterday I also …
Dear readers, I’m starting my vacation today. I might stop posting for two weeks, so Happy New Year in advance. Of course, before starting vacation, this article shares some interesting recent developments in the PG ecosystem. Yesterday I also …
Database as Business Architecture
Databases are the core of business architecture - this is self-evident consensus. But what if we go further and treat databases as business architecture itself, putting business logic, web servers, and even entire front and back ends into databases? …
Databases are the core of business architecture - this is self-evident consensus. But what if we go further and treat databases as business architecture itself, putting business logic, web servers, and even entire front and back ends into databases? …
Escaping Cloud Computing Scam Mills: The Big Fool Paying for Pain
This article comes from a real consultation case. Any resemblance to your situation is purely due to cloud vendors’ deep affinity with your wallet. Yesterday a user came to consult, asking if PostgreSQL distributed database extension Citus has any …
This article comes from a real consultation case. Any resemblance to your situation is purely due to cloud vendors’ deep affinity with your wallet. Yesterday a user came to consult, asking if PostgreSQL distributed database extension Citus has any …
Pigsty v3.2: The pig CLI, Full ARM Support, Supabase & Grafana Enhancements
GitHub Release | Release Note Pigsty wraps up 2024 with its final release: v3.2. This release brings the pig command-line tool and complete ARM extension support. Together, they deliver silky-smooth PostgreSQL delivery across 10 major Linux …
GitHub Release | Release Note Pigsty wraps up 2024 with its final release: v3.2. This release brings the pig command-line tool and complete ARM extension support. Together, they deliver silky-smooth PostgreSQL delivery across 10 major Linux …
Pig, The Postgres Extension Wizard
Title: Meet Pig: The Postgres Extension Wizard Ever wished installing or upgrading PostgreSQL extensions didn’t feel like digging through outdated readmes, cryptic configure scripts, or random GitHub forks & patches? The painful truth is that …
Title: Meet Pig: The Postgres Extension Wizard Ever wished installing or upgrading PostgreSQL extensions didn’t feel like digging through outdated readmes, cryptic configure scripts, or random GitHub forks & patches? The painful truth is that …
OpenAI Global Outage Postmortem: K8S Circular Dependencies
On December 11th, OpenAI experienced a global service outage affecting ChatGPT, API, Sora, Playground, and Labs. The outage lasted from 3:16 PM to 7:38 PM PT, spanning over four hours with significant impact. According to OpenAI’s incident report …
On December 11th, OpenAI experienced a global service outage affecting ChatGPT, API, Sora, Playground, and Labs. The outage lasted from 3:16 PM to 7:38 PM PT, spanning over four hours with significant impact. According to OpenAI’s incident report …
Solving the 24-Point Card Game with a Single SQL Query
Here is the challenge: Database Programming Contest: Solve the 24-Point Card Game with One SQL Query, hosted by the database tooling platform NineData. There is a table named cards. Its auto-incrementing numeric primary key is id, and it has 4 …
Here is the challenge: Database Programming Contest: Solve the 24-Point Card Game with One SQL Query, hosted by the database tooling platform NineData. There is a table named cards. Its auto-incrementing numeric primary key is id, and it has 4 …