Development
Choosing a Database in 2026: Start with Postgres
Why Postgres is the right default for most products, and the specific cases that justify something else.
By Vikram SinghMarch 15, 20267 min read
The database question has a boring, correct default in 2026: use Postgres until you have a specific reason not to.
Postgres does more than you think
Relational data, JSON documents, full-text search, geospatial queries, and vector embeddings all live happily in one Postgres instance. One system to operate beats five.
When to add something else
Reach for Redis for caching and ephemeral data, a dedicated search engine at large scale, and a specialized vector store only when pgvector stops keeping up.
Avoid premature exotic choices
NoSQL solves specific scale and shape problems. Adopting it to avoid writing a schema usually trades a little upfront work for a lot of downstream pain.
