Survey Insights on PostgreSQL Uptime and Cloud Reliability
A recent survey conducted by The Foundry has shed light on the reliability concerns faced by PostgreSQL users when utilizing cloud services. The findings reveal a significant gap between user expectations for uptime and the actual performance delivered by cloud providers. Among the respondents, a striking 82 percent expressed apprehension regarding potential cloud region failures, with 21 percent having experienced such failures in the past year.
The survey, which included 212 IT decision-makers from enterprises and SaaS businesses, highlighted that an overwhelming 91 percent of organizations currently leveraging PostgreSQL require no more than four minutes of downtime per month—translating to an ambitious uptime target of approximately 99.99 percent. Notably, 24 percent of respondents are striving for even more stringent requirements, aiming for less than 30 seconds of downtime.
Commissioned by pgEdge, a distributed PostgreSQL vendor, the study also revealed AWS’s stronghold in the PostgreSQL service market. A notable 55 percent of participants reported using AWS RDS, while 45 percent utilized AWS Aurora Global Database. Other cloud services such as Azure Cosmos DB and Google Cloud SQL were employed by 29 percent and 24 percent of respondents, respectively.
The survey findings indicate a shift in cloud strategy, with the report noting, “The meaningful adoption of Azure and Google Cloud solutions indicates organizations are beginning to diversify beyond a single-cloud ecosystem.”
Respondents shared their experiences with unexpected downtime, which has proven disruptive to business operations and workflows for 56 percent of those surveyed. Additionally, 40 percent reported damage to brand trust, while 49 percent experienced spikes in support requests, and 47 percent required emergency remediation. Notably, every respondent acknowledged some form of impact from downtime.
When it comes to strategies for ensuring PostgreSQL availability, the approaches appear varied. A majority, 58 percent, have opted for single-region strategies that incorporate read replicas and automated failover mechanisms. Meanwhile, 47 percent have embraced multi-region adoption, employing standard Postgres read replicas and automated failover or multi-master replication. However, a concerning 23 percent still rely on manual processes, and 5 percent reported having no high availability strategy in place.
The survey also highlighted the growing prevalence of PostgreSQL among SaaS businesses and enterprises. A significant 51 percent of respondents indicated that they use PostgreSQL within a hybrid database environment, while 35 percent rely on it as the primary database for customer-facing applications.
In a broader context, database ranking service DB-Engines noted that PostgreSQL has emerged as the most significant climber in the first half of 2025, achieving an impressive ranking increase of over 13 points. Currently, it stands fourth overall, trailing only behind Oracle, MySQL, and Microsoft SQL Server.
