Postgres.app is the easiest way to get started developing with Postgres on the Mac. Open the Postgres app, and you have a local Postgres database ready and awaiting new connections. Close the app, and the server shuts down. The macOS PostgreSQL app is available for free download today.
Postgres.app is designed so that most common programming libraries can find and it and link to it automatically - making it the easiest way to develop against Postgres on a Mac.
It comes with the most popular Postgres libraries and extensions available right "out of the box" including:
- PostGIS - Geospatial data and search.
- PLV8 - JavaScript procedural language using the V8 engine.
- hstore - Key-value data type.
The Postgres Mac app supports Mac OS 10.13 (High Sierra) and newer, and can be downloaded from https://postgresapp.com/.
Our primary motivation for this project was to lower the barrier of entry for using Postgres on a Mac, allowing more people than ever before to try out cool features like hstore, full-text search, window functions, and geospatial querying.
Another motivation for creating a Mac-native Postgres app was to simplify achieving parity between development and production environments. The majority of active apps on Heroku use Postgres, but we found that many developers use SQLite or MySQL on their local development machines. This can lead to subtle and hard-to-diagnose problems. Dev-prod parity is one of the best practices set forth in The Twelve-Factor App and is an easy, low-cost way to enhance developer productivity.
Created by Mattt Thompson, Postgres.app is an open-source project released under the PostgreSQL License. Source code is available on GitHub.
Whether you are a professional developer or just getting started with Postgres, Postgres.app provides the best Postgres experience on the Mac.