Actian Ingres vs PostgreSQL
Actian Ingres: One of the original relational databases, still sold by Actian for long-lived enterprise systems. PostgreSQL: The extensible, standards-first open-source relational database.
key differences
- Licensing: Actian Ingres is proprietary (Actian commercial license); PostgreSQL is open source (permissive) (PostgreSQL License).
- Horizontal scaling is none in Actian Ingres and addon in PostgreSQL.
- Only Actian Ingres has columnar storage, encryption at rest.
- Only PostgreSQL has full-text search, vector search, geospatial, json, materialized views.
choose ingres for
- +Maintaining legacy Ingres/OpenROAD business applications
- +Government and public-sector systems built on Ingres
- +Lift-and-shift of on-prem Ingres to containers or cloud VMs
best at · OLTP, OLAP, HTAP
choose postgresql for
- +General-purpose application backend
- +SaaS multi-tenant data
- +Geospatial applications with PostGIS
- +Semantic search alongside relational data with pgvector
best at · OLTP, Geo, Search
Actian Ingres vs PostgreSQL: FAQ
What is the difference between Actian Ingres and PostgreSQL?
Actian Ingres: One of the original relational databases, still sold by Actian for long-lived enterprise systems. PostgreSQL: The extensible, standards-first open-source relational database. Licensing: Actian Ingres is proprietary (Actian commercial license); PostgreSQL is open source (permissive) (PostgreSQL License). Horizontal scaling is none in Actian Ingres and addon in PostgreSQL. Only Actian Ingres has columnar storage, encryption at rest.
When should I choose Actian Ingres over PostgreSQL?
Choose Actian Ingres for maintaining legacy Ingres/OpenROAD business applications; government and public-sector systems built on Ingres; and lift-and-shift of on-prem Ingres to containers or cloud VMs. Choose PostgreSQL for general-purpose application backend, SaaS multi-tenant data and geospatial applications with PostGIS.
Is Actian Ingres or PostgreSQL more popular?
PostgreSQL ranks #1 on the WhichDB Score (93.2/100) and Actian Ingres ranks #197 (16.8/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.
Are Actian Ingres and PostgreSQL open source?
No. Actian Ingres is proprietary, closed-source software. License: Actian commercial license. Yes. PostgreSQL is open source. License: PostgreSQL License.