Postgres is the Undisputed Most Admired and Desired Database in Stack Overflow’s 2023 Developer Survey

In May 2023, more than 90,000 developers around the world responded to Stack Overflow’s annual survey on which technologies they’re currently using and which tools they most want to use.

While we’ve long known that Postgres is the superior technology, we were elated that developers wholeheartedly concurred. While we’ve seen this trending, this year’s results demonstrate what appears to be an irreversible trend.

Postgres is the most admired and desired database among all developers, taking over the first place spot from MySQL. Professional developers also ranked Postgres as their #1 choice.

Here are the details:

Postgres is the most admired database.

Postgres was voted the most admired database, beating out 31 other databases. Seventy-one percent of 75,996 respondents said they used Postgres last year and intend to continue using it. (Yes, really. Seventy-one percent. Of almost 80k respondents.)

Postgres is the most desired database.

Forty-two percent of the developers who aren’t currently using Postgres plan to use it next year. These developers ranked Postgres above MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, MongoDB and a number of other databases. Last year, Postgres was the most wanted database as well – no doubt many of those who wanted it then are using it today.  

Postgres is the most popular database.

This year, Postgres took the top spot from MySQL for the most popular database, with 45.5 percent of all developers ranking it as #1. And when it comes to professional developers, 49 percent selected Postgres as their first choice for extensive development work. This confirms what we’ve been saying – Postgres is more than just a legacy database alternative. It’s a disruptor that cannot be ignored.

Professional developers use Postgres more than any other database

See full Stack Overflow survey results
 

Why developers prefer Postgres

Postgres continues to outpace legacy and specialty databases in the most critical contexts – including technical performance, flexibility and applicability across the broadest number of enterprise workloads. Open source is at the heart of this.

With its extensive data model, ability to run on every cloud and operating system, and vibrant multi-company development community, Postgres enables developers to be enormously productive and innovative. As a result of all these benefits, many technologies make a point to be Postgres compatible, which increases development opportunities and decreases costs.

No wonder developers love it. 

It encourages us to see that developers admire and desire Postgres, the way we do. Postgres has always been No. 1 for us.  We’re here to help ensure that you get the most out of it so it’s #1 for you, too.