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Go ahead, self-host Postgres

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Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#41

Post by marcosdumay »

ijustlovemath wrote: post #8
odie5533 wrote: post #4

Recommends hosting postgres yourself. Doesn't recommend a distribution stack. If you try this at a startup to save $50 a month, you will never recoup the time you wasted setting it up. We pay dedicated managed services for these things so we can make products on top of them.

There's not much to recommend; just use the Postgres from your distribution's LTS repo. I like Debian for its rock solid stability.

The one problem with using your distro's Postgres is that your upgrade routine will be dictated by a 3rd party.

And Postgres upgrades are not transparent. So you'll have a 1 or 2 hours task, every 6 to 18 months that you have only a small amount of control over when it happens. This is ok for a lot of people, and completely unthinkable for some other people.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#42

Post by Nextgrid »

molf wrote: post #36

> I'd argue self-hosting is the right choice for basically everyone, with the few exceptions at both ends of the extreme: > If you're just starting out in software & want to get something working quickly with vibe coding, it's easier to treat Postgres as just another remote API that you can call from your single deployed app > If you're a really big company and are reaching the scale where you need trained database e…

> employing engineers to manage self-hosted databases is more cost effective than outsourcing

Every company out there is using the cloud and yet still employs infrastructure engineers to deal with its complexity. The "cloud" reducing staff costs is and was always a lie.

PaaS platforms (Heroku, Render, Railway) can legitimately be operated by your average dev and not have to hire a dedicated person; those cost even more though.

Another limitation of both the cloud and PaaS is that they are only responsible for the infrastructure/services you use; they will not touch your application at all. Can your application automatically recover from a slow/intermittent network, a DB failover (that you can't even test because your cloud providers' failover and failure modes are a black box), and so on? Otherwise you're waking up at 3am no matter what.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#43

Post by molf »

convolvatron wrote: post #40
molf wrote: post #36

> I'd argue self-hosting is the right choice for basically everyone, with the few exceptions at both ends of the extreme: > If you're just starting out in software & want to get something working quickly with vibe coding, it's easier to treat Postgres as just another remote API that you can call from your single deployed app > If you're a really big company and are reaching the scale where you need trained database e…

its not. I've been in a few shops that use RDS because they think their time is better spend doing other things. except now they are stuck trying to maintain and debug Postgres without having the same visibility and agency that they would if they hosted it themselves. situation isn't at all clear.

Interesting. Is this an issue with RDS?

I use Google Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL and it's been rock solid. No issues; troubleshooting works fine; all extensions we need already installed; can adjust settings where needed.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#44

Post by tcdent »

WillDaSilva wrote: post #12
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always just Postgressed everything. I used MySQL a bit in the PHP3 days, but eventually moved onto Postgres. SQLite when prototyping, Postgres for production. If you need to power a lawnmower and all you have is a 500bhp Scania V8, you may as well just do it.

It's pretty easy these days to spin up a local Postgres container. Might as well use it for prototyping too, and save yourself the hassle of switching later.

It might seem minor, but the little things add up. Make your dev environment mirror prod from the start will save you a bunch of headaches. Then, when you're ready to deploy, there is nothing to change.

Even better, stage to a production-like environment early, and then deploy day can be as simple as a DNS record change.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#45

Post by bradley13 »

Huh? Maybe I missed something, but...why should self-hosting a database server be hard or scary? Sure, you are then responsible for security backups, etc...but that's not really different in the cloud - if anything, the cloud makes it more complicated.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#46

Post by orev »

donatj wrote: post #28

The author brings up the point, but I have always found surprising how much more expensive managed databases are than a comparable VPS. I would expect a little bit more as a cost of the convenience, but in my experience it's generally multiple times the expense. It's wild. This has kept me away from managed databases in all but my largest projects.

Once they convince you that you can’t do it yourself, you end up relying on them, but didn’t develop the skills you would need to migrate to another provider when they start raising prices. And they keep raising prices because by then you have no choice.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#47

Post by zbentley »

For a fascinating counterpoint (gist: cloud hosted Postgres on RDS aurora is not anything like the system you would host yourself, and other cloud deployments of databases should also not be done like our field is used to doing it when self-hosting) see this other front page article and discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46334990

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#48

Post by matthewmacleod »

Nextgrid wrote: post #42
molf wrote: post #36

> I'd argue self-hosting is the right choice for basically everyone, with the few exceptions at both ends of the extreme: > If you're just starting out in software & want to get something working quickly with vibe coding, it's easier to treat Postgres as just another remote API that you can call from your single deployed app > If you're a really big company and are reaching the scale where you need trained database e…

> employing engineers to manage self-hosted databases is more cost effective than outsourcing Every company out there is using the cloud and yet still employs infrastructure engineers to deal with its complexity. The "cloud" reducing staff costs is and was always a lie. PaaS platforms (Heroku, Render, Railway) can legitimately be operated by your average dev and not have to hire a dedicated person; those cost even mo…

I don’t think it’s a lie, it’s just perhaps overstated. The number of staff needed to manage a cloud infrastructure is definitely lower than that required to manage the equivalent self-hosted infrastructure.

Whether or not you need that equivalence is an orthogonal question.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#49

Post by molf »

Nextgrid wrote: post #42
molf wrote: post #36

> I'd argue self-hosting is the right choice for basically everyone, with the few exceptions at both ends of the extreme: > If you're just starting out in software & want to get something working quickly with vibe coding, it's easier to treat Postgres as just another remote API that you can call from your single deployed app > If you're a really big company and are reaching the scale where you need trained database e…

> employing engineers to manage self-hosted databases is more cost effective than outsourcing Every company out there is using the cloud and yet still employs infrastructure engineers to deal with its complexity. The "cloud" reducing staff costs is and was always a lie. PaaS platforms (Heroku, Render, Railway) can legitimately be operated by your average dev and not have to hire a dedicated person; those cost even mo…

> Every company out there is using the cloud and yet still employs infrastructure engineers

Every company beyond a particular size surely? For many small and medium sized companies hiring an infrastructure team makes just as little sense as hiring kitchen staff to make lunch.

Re: Go ahead, self-host Postgres

#50

Post by xboxnolifes »

dangoodmanUT wrote: post #32
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #11

So, yeah, I guess there's much confusion about what a 'managed database' actually is ? Because for me, the table stakes are: -Backups: the provider will push a full generic disaster-recovery backup of my database to an off-provider location at least daily, without the need for a maintenance window -Optimization: index maintenance and storage optimization are performed automatically and transparently -Multi-datacenter…

There should be no data loss window with a hosted database

Why is that?
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