head to head · open source
postgrest vs pgdog
postgrest has 27,674 GitHub stars, 1,227 forks, 400 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pgdog has 5,508 stars, 282 forks, 208 open issues and last shipped yesterday. postgrest leads on adoption by 402% (27,674 vs 5,508 stars). postgrest is written in Haskell under MIT; pgdog is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. postgrest has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, pgdog 5%. postgrest was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (postgresql), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| postgrest | pgdog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 5.5K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Haskell | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 282 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick postgrest if
- You weight community size — 28K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Haskell
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pgdog if
- You want the pgdog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and pgdog fits your workflow better
About postgrest
PostgREST is a Haskell written server that serves a fully RESTful API from any existing PostgreSQL database, and it is aimed at developers, database administrators, and operators who want a standards compliant HTTP API without writing and maintaining one from scratch.
read the full postgrest overview →
About pgdog
PgDog is an open source proxy for scaling PostgreSQL that pools connections, load balances queries across primary and replicas, and shards entire databases, written in Rust and aimed at teams whose PostgreSQL deployments have outgrown a single client to server connection per application process.
read the full pgdog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is postgrest or pgdog more popular?
postgrest has 27,674 GitHub stars and pgdog has 5,508. postgrest has the larger community by that measure.
Are postgrest and pgdog free?
Both are open source. postgrest is licensed under MIT and pgdog under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between postgrest and pgdog?
postgrest is written in Haskell and pgdog in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, postgrest or pgdog?
Choose postgrest if you want the larger community (27,674 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pgdog if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.