# Comparison
> This article compares Pigsty with similar products and projects, highlighting feature differences.
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LLMS index: [llms.txt](/llms.txt)
---
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## Comparison with RDS
[Pigsty](https://pigsty.io) is a local-first RDS alternative released under Apache-2.0, deployable on your own physical/virtual machines or cloud servers.
We've chosen Amazon [AWS RDS for PostgreSQL](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/postgresql/) (the global market leader) and Alibaba Cloud [RDS for PostgreSQL](https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/apsaradb-for-rds-postgresql) (China's market leader) as benchmarks for comparison.
Both Aliyun RDS and AWS RDS are closed-source cloud database services, available only through rental models on public clouds. The following cloud-vendor information is a February 2024 archive based on PostgreSQL 16 at that time. The Pigsty column in the **Feature Comparison** table is maintained against the current release, while the later **Key Extensions** version table remains a period snapshot.
-----------
### Feature Comparison
| **Feature** | **Pigsty** | **Aliyun RDS** | **AWS RDS** |
|--------|------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Major Version Support | 14 - 18 | 13 - 18 | 13 - 18 |
| Read Replicas | Supports unlimited read replicas | Standby instances not exposed to users | Standby instances not exposed to users |
| Read/Write Splitting | Port-based traffic separation | Separate paid component | Separate paid component |
| Fast/Slow Separation | Supports offline ETL instances | Not available | Not available |
| Cross-Region DR | Supports standby clusters | Multi-AZ deployment supported | Multi-AZ deployment supported |
| Delayed Replicas | Supports delayed instances | Not available | Not available |
| Load Balancing | HAProxy / LVS | Separate paid component | Separate paid component |
| Connection Pool | Pgbouncer | Separate paid component: RDS | Separate paid component: RDS Proxy |
| High Availability | Patroni / etcd | Requires HA edition | Requires HA edition |
| Point-in-Time Recovery | pgBackRest / Silo | Backup supported | Backup supported |
| Metrics Monitoring | VictoriaMetrics / Exporter | Free basic / Paid advanced | Free basic / Paid advanced |
| Log Collection | VictoriaLogs / Vector | Basic support | Basic support |
| Visualization | Grafana / Echarts | Basic monitoring | Basic monitoring |
| Alert Aggregation | AlertManager | Basic support | Basic support |
----------
### Key Extensions
This is a historical PostgreSQL 16 extension-support snapshot based on information visible on 2024-02-28. Its versions and projects—including `pg_analytics`, which was later archived and removed from the catalog—are not the current Pigsty v4.5.0 or cloud-provider support matrix. Use the [**extension catalog**](https://pigsty.io/ext/list/) for current Pigsty coverage and recheck each provider's documentation for its current service capabilities.
- [**Pigsty Extension List**](https://pigsty.io/ext/list/)
- [**AWS RDS Extension List**](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/PostgreSQLReleaseNotes/postgresql-extensions.html):
- [**Aliyun RDS Extension List**](https://help.aliyun.com/zh/rds/apsaradb-rds-for-postgresql/extensions-supported-by-apsaradb-rds-for-postgresql)
| **Extension** | **Pigsty RDS** / PGDG Official Repo | **Aliyun RDS** | **AWS RDS** |
|----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------|:--------------------------------------------------------------------------:|:----------------------------------------------------------------:|
| Install Extensions | Free to install | Not allowed | Not allowed |
| Geospatial | PostGIS 3.4.2 | PostGIS 3.3.4 / Ganos 6.1 | PostGIS 3.4.1 |
| Point Cloud | PG PointCloud 1.2.5 | Ganos PointCloud 6.1 | |
| Vector Embedding | PGVector 0.6.1 / Svector 0.5.6 | pase 0.0.1 | PGVector 0.6 |
| Machine Learning | PostgresML 2.8.1 | | |
| Time Series | TimescaleDB 2.14.2 | | |
| Horizontal Scaling | Citus 12.1 | | |
| Columnar Storage | Hydra 1.1.1 | | |
| Full Text Search | pg_bm25 0.5.6
| | |
| Graph Database | Apache AGE 1.5.0 | | |
| GraphQL | PG GraphQL 1.5.0 | | |
| OLAP | pg_analytics 0.5.6 | | |
| Message Queue | pgq 3.5.0 | | |
| DuckDB | duckdb_fdw 1.1 | | |
| Fuzzy Tokenization | zhparser 1.1 / pg_bigm 1.2 | zhparser 1.0 / pg_jieba | pg_bigm 1.2 |
| CDC Extraction | wal2json 2.5.3 | | wal2json 2.5 |
| Bloat Management | pg_repack 1.5.0 | pg_repack 1.4.8 | pg_repack 1.5.0 |
> [!DETAILS]- AWS RDS PG Available Extensions
> AWS RDS for PostgreSQL 16 available extensions (excluding PG built-in extensions)
>
> | name | pg16 | pg15 | pg14 | pg13 | pg12 | pg11 | pg10 |
> |:---------------------|:-----|:-----|:-----|:-----|:-----|:-----|:-----|
> | amcheck | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 1.2 | yes | 1 |
> | auto\_explain | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
> | autoinc | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | null | null | null |
> | bloom | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | bool\_plperl | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | null | null | null |
> | btree\_gin | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.2 |
> | btree\_gist | 1.7 | 1.7 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
> | citext | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.4 |
> | cube | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.2 |
> | dblink | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 |
> | dict\_int | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | dict\_xsyn | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | earthdistance | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
> | fuzzystrmatch | 1.2 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
> | hstore | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.7 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.4 |
> | hstore\_plperl | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | insert\_username | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | null | null | null |
> | intagg | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
> | intarray | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 |
> | isn | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.1 |
> | jsonb\_plperl | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | null | null |
> | lo | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
> | ltree | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
> | moddatetime | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | null | null | null |
> | old\_snapshot | 1 | 1 | 1 | null | null | null | null |
> | pageinspect | 1.12 | 1.11 | 1.9 | 1.8 | 1.7 | 1.7 | 1.6 |
> | pg\_buffercache | 1.4 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 |
> | pg\_freespacemap | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 |
> | pg\_prewarm | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.1 |
> | pg\_stat\_statements | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.9 | 1.8 | 1.7 | 1.6 | 1.6 |
> | pg\_trgm | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.3 |
> | pg\_visibility | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 |
> | pg\_walinspect | 1.1 | 1 | null | null | null | null | null |
> | pgcrypto | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 |
> | pgrowlocks | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 |
> | pgstattuple | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
> | plperl | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | plpgsql | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | pltcl | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | postgres\_fdw | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | refint | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | null | null | null |
> | seg | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.1 |
> | sslinfo | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 |
> | tablefunc | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | tcn | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
> | tsm\_system\_rows | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.1 |
> | tsm\_system\_time | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1.1 |
> | unaccent | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
> | uuid-ossp | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 |
> [!DETAILS]- Aliyun RDS PG Available Extensions
> Aliyun RDS for PostgreSQL 16 available extensions (excluding PG built-in extensions)
>
> | name | pg16 | pg15 | pg14 | pg13 | pg12 | pg11 | pg10 | description |
> |:---------------------|:-----|:-----|:-----|:-----|:-----|:-----|:-----|:-------------------------------------------|
> | bloom | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Provides a bloom filter-based index access method. |
> | btree\_gin | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.2 | Provides GIN operator class examples that implement B-tree equivalent behavior for multiple data types and all enum types. |
> | btree\_gist | 1.7 | 1.7 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | Provides GiST operator class examples that implement B-tree equivalent behavior for multiple data types and all enum types. |
> | citext | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.4 | Provides a case-insensitive string type. |
> | cube | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.2 | Provides a data type for representing multi-dimensional cubes. |
> | dblink | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | Cross-database table operations. |
> | dict\_int | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Additional full-text search dictionary template example. |
> | earthdistance | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | Provides two different methods to calculate great circle distances on the Earth's surface. |
> | fuzzystrmatch | 1.2 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | Determines similarities and distances between strings. |
> | hstore | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.7 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.4 | Stores key-value pairs in a single PostgreSQL value. |
> | intagg | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | Provides an integer aggregator and an enumerator. |
> | intarray | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | Provides some useful functions and operators for manipulating null-free integer arrays. |
> | isn | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.1 | Validates input according to a hard-coded prefix list, also used for concatenating numbers during output. |
> | ltree | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | For representing labels of data stored in a hierarchical tree structure. |
> | pg\_buffercache | 1.4 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | Provides a way to examine the shared buffer cache in real time. |
> | pg\_freespacemap | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | Examines the free space map (FSM). |
> | pg\_prewarm | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.1 | Provides a convenient way to load data into the OS buffer or PostgreSQL buffer. |
> | pg\_stat\_statements | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.9 | 1.8 | 1.7 | 1.6 | 1.6 | Provides a means of tracking execution statistics of all SQL statements executed by a server. |
> | pg\_trgm | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.3 | Provides functions and operators for alphanumeric text similarity, and index operator classes that support fast searching of similar strings. |
> | pgcrypto | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 1.3 | Provides cryptographic functions for PostgreSQL. |
> | pgrowlocks | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | Provides a function to show row locking information for a specified table. |
> | pgstattuple | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.5 | Provides multiple functions to obtain tuple-level statistics. |
> | plperl | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Provides Perl procedural language. |
> | plpgsql | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Provides SQL procedural language. |
> | pltcl | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Provides Tcl procedural language. |
> | postgres\_fdw | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Cross-database table operations. |
> | sslinfo | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.2 | Provides information about the SSL certificate provided by the current client. |
> | tablefunc | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Contains multiple table-returning functions. |
> | tsm\_system\_rows | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Provides the table sampling method SYSTEM\_ROWS. |
> | tsm\_system\_time | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Provides the table sampling method SYSTEM\_TIME. |
> | unaccent | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | A text search dictionary that can remove accents (diacritics) from lexemes. |
> | uuid-ossp | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | Provides functions to generate universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) using several standard algorithms. |
> | xml2 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 1.1 | Provides XPath queries and XSLT functionality. |
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### Performance Comparison
| **Metric** | **Pigsty** | **Aliyun RDS** | **AWS RDS** |
|--------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Peak Performance | [PGTPC on NVME SSD Benchmark](https://github.com/Vonng/pgtpc/tree/master/sysbench) sysbench oltp_rw | [RDS PG Performance Whitepaper](https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/101470.html) sysbench oltp scenario QPS 4000 ~ 8000 per core | |
| Storage Spec: Max Capacity | 32TB / [NVME SSD](https://en.shannon-sys.com/product.html?name=gen_4) | 32 TB / **ESSD PL3** | 64 TB / **io2** [EBS](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/storage/achieve-higher-database-performance-using-amazon-ebs-io2-block-express-volumes/) Block Express |
| Storage Spec: Max IOPS | 4K Random Read: Max 3M, Random Write 2000~350K | 4K Random Read: Max 1M | 16K Random IOPS: 256K |
| Storage Spec: Max Latency | 4K Random Read: 75µs, Random Write: 15µs | 4K Random Read: 200µs | 500µs / Inferred as 16K random IO |
| Storage Spec: Max Reliability | UBER < 1e-18, equivalent to 18 nines MTBF: 2M hours 5DWPD, 3 years continuous | Reliability 9 nines, equivalent to UBER 1e-9 [Storage and Data Reliability](https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/476273.html) | **Durability**: 99.999%, 5 nines (0.001% annual failure rate) [io2 specification](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/storage/achieve-higher-database-performance-using-amazon-ebs-io2-block-express-volumes/) |
| Storage Spec: Max Cost | ¥31.5/TB·month (5-year warranty amortized / 3.2T / Enterprise-grade / MLC) | ¥3200/TB·month (original ¥6400, monthly ¥4000) 50% off with 3-year prepaid | ¥1900/TB·month using max spec 65536GB / 256K IOPS best discount |
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### Observability
Pigsty provides nearly 3000 monitoring metrics and 50+ monitoring dashboards, covering database monitoring, host monitoring, connection pool monitoring, load balancer monitoring, and more, providing users with an unparalleled observability experience.
Pigsty provides 638 PostgreSQL-related monitoring metrics, while AWS RDS only has 99, and Aliyun RDS has only single-digit metrics:
Additionally, some projects provide PostgreSQL monitoring capabilities, but are relatively simple:
- [pgwatch](https://pgwatch.com/): 123 metric types
- [pgmonitor](https://github.com/CrunchyData/pgmonitor): 156 metric types
- [datadog](https://docs.datadoghq.com/integrations/postgres): 69 metric types
- [pgDash](https://pgdash.io/)
- [ClusterControl](https://severalnines.com/product/clustercontrol)
- [pganalyze](https://pganalyze.com/)
- [Aliyun RDS](https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/102748.html): 8 metric types
- [AWS RDS](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_Monitoring.OS.html): 99 metric types
- [Azure RDS](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/postgresql/)
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### Maintainability
| **Metric** | **Pigsty** | **Aliyun RDS** | **AWS RDS** |
|---------------|--------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------|
| System Usability | Simple | Simple | Simple |
| Configuration Management | Config files / CMDB based on Ansible Inventory | Can use Terraform | Can use Terraform |
| Change Method | Idempotent Playbooks based on Ansible Playbook | Console click operations | Console click operations |
| Parameter Tuning | Auto-adapts to node specs, Four preset templates: OLTP, OLAP, TINY, CRIT | | |
| Infra as Code | Natively supported | Can use Terraform | Can use Terraform |
| Customizable Parameters | [Pigsty Parameters](/docs/ref/param) 283 parameters | | |
| Service & Support | Commercial subscription support available | After-sales ticket support | After-sales ticket support |
| Air-gapped Deployment | Offline installation supported | N/A | N/A |
| Database Migration | Playbooks for zero-downtime migration from existing v10+ PG instances to Pigsty managed instances via logical replication | Cloud migration assistance [Aliyun RDS Data Sync](https://help.aliyun.com/document_detail/322179.html?spm=a2c4g.11186623.0.0.5fb374c9OOi4Dm) | |
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### Cost
Based on experience, RDS unit cost is 5-15 times that of self-hosted for software and hardware resources, with a rent-to-own ratio typically around one month. For details, see [Cost Analysis](/docs/about/compare/cost/).
| Factor | **Metric** | **Pigsty** | **Aliyun RDS** | **AWS RDS** |
|----|-----------|----------------------|-----------------|------------------|
| Cost | Software License/Service Fee | Free, hardware ~¥20-40/core·month | ¥200-400/core·month | ¥400-1300/core·month |
| | Support Service Fee | Service ~¥100/core·month | Included in RDS cost | |
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## Other On-Premises Database Management Software
Some software and vendors providing PostgreSQL management capabilities:
- [Aiven](https://aiven.io/): Closed-source commercial cloud-hosted solution
- [Percona](https://www.percona.com/software/postgresql-distribution): Commercial consulting, simple PG distribution
- [ClusterControl](https://docs.severalnines.com/docs/clustercontrol/): Commercial database management software
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## Other Kubernetes Operators
Pigsty refuses to use Kubernetes for managing databases in production, so there are ecological differences with these solutions.
- PGO
- StackGres
- CloudNativePG
- TemboOperator
- PostgresOperator
- PerconaOperator
- Kubegres
- KubeDB
- KubeBlocks
For more information, see:
- [Is Putting Databases in K8S a Good Idea?](https://pigsty.io/blog/db/db-in-k8s/)
- [Is Putting Databases in Containers a Good Idea?](https://pigsty.io/blog/db/pg-in-docker/)
---
Section pages:
- [Cost Reference](/docs/about/compare/cost/): This article provides cost data to help you evaluate self-hosted Pigsty, cloud RDS costs, and typical DBA salaries.
- [Open-Source Impact](/docs/about/compare/impact/): Impact comparison of PostgreSQL ecosystem projects, mainly measured by GitHub star counts.