Why AgensGraph use PostgreSQL as core level?

Question

In addition to PostgreSQL has a potential to be developed because it is an open source, are there more reasons to use PostgreSQL as core level on AgensGraph ?

Answer 1

There are many reasons we chose PostgreSQL as the code base for AgensGraph.

1. Robust and reliable engine. PostgreSQL has long history over about twenty years and it has become a very robust and reliable DBMS. It is also still actively developing by global developer groups including Russia, China, Japan and US, etc. This is very important because developing a database system from scratch is very hard and time-consuming task. The DBMS engine is one of the most complex system and it is very hard to achieve the reliability like PostgreSQL. So rather than develop a database system from scratch, we chose to use PostgreSQL as a development framework. As a result, we can focus on our main goals to implement an efficient graph database engine.

2. License. PostgreSQL license is the most free license. It does not have any restriction to develop commercial products using its source code. PostgreSQL aims to become a database engine framework. In other words, it is developed bearing being a code base for other new database system, like AgensGraph, in mind. So there are many database systems based-on PostgreSQL such as Vertica, Hadapt, Nettiza, Greenplum, etc. You can find other derived systems from https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/PostgreSQL_derived_databases.

3. Efficient query optimizer and executor. PostgreSQL's query optimizer is very good to make an optimal join ordering. From an academic research paper http://www.vldb.org/pvldb/vol9/p204-leis.pdf, PostgreSQL's query optimizer is competitive to commercial DBMSs. Because a graph pattern matching query has many joins in it, it is important to choose an optimal query plan.

There are more reasons to choose PostgreSQL. There are mature eco-systems around PostgreSQL and the great global community.