# An interview on what makes Postgres unique (extensions)

DevFeed: [An interview on what makes Postgres unique (extensions)](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/an-interview-on-what-makes-postgres-unique-extensions-41222.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.craigkerstiens.com/2019/11/13/postgres-interview-from-art-of-postgresql/>)

Author: Map

Published: 2019-11-13T20:55:56Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Craig Kerstiens](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/craig-kerstiens.md>)

Topics: [PostgreSQL](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/postgresql.md>), [Extension](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/extension.md>), [Open Source](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/open-source.md>), [Database](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/database.md>)

Tags: [database](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/database.md>), [extension](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/extension.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>), [postgres](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/postgres.md>), [postgresql](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/postgresql.md>)

## AI overview

An interview excerpt discusses why PostgreSQL extensions matter to the project and ecosystem. The interviewee argues that extensions have expanded PostgreSQL beyond a traditional relational database into a broader data platform, with examples including hstore, GIS, HyperLogLog, and TopN.

## Source excerpt

I've been at dinners before with developers that admitted developers, themselves included, can be a bit opinionated. In one case one said for example, "I love Postgres, but I have no idea why." They were sitting at the wrong table to use Postgres as an example... But it is quite often that I am asked Why Postgres. In fact a little over a year ago good friend Dimitri Fontaine asked if he could interview me for a book he's working on for Postgres. I've long said their is a shortage of good books about Postgres and he's done a great job with his in providing a guide targetted at developers, not just DBAs, that want to become better with their database. What follows is the excerpt of the interview from the book. And if you're interested in picking up a copy he was friendly enough to share a discount code you can find below. Intro Craig heads up the Cloud team @citusdata now running product for Azure Postgres since being acquired by Microsoft. Citus extends Postgres to be a horizontally scalable distributed database. If you have a database, especially Postgres, that needs to scale beyond a single node (typically at 100GB and up) Craig is always happy to chat and see if Citus can help. Previously Craig has spent a number of years @heroku, a platform-as-a-service, which takes much of the overhead out of IT and lets developers focus on building features and adding value. The bulk of Craig's time at Heroku was spent running product and marketing for Heroku Data. In your opinion, how important are extensions for the PostgreSQL open source project and ecosystem? To me the extension APIs and growing ecosystem of extensions are the biggest advancement to Postgres in probably the last 10 years. Extensions have allowed Postgres to extend beyond a traditional relational database to much more of a data platform. Whether it's the initial NoSQL datatypes (if we exclude XML that is) in hstore, to the rich feature set in geospatial with GIS, or approximation algorithms such as HyperLogLog