Hi Lynna -

> I know someone at Dreamhost must appreciate the innate
> goodness of PostgreSQL. Jeff! You've said good things
> about it. So someone, please, please, PLEASE start offering
> PostgreSQL at Dreamhost!

While I'm not one to say bad things about MySQL (which I think is very good for most applications), I do indeed appreciate PostgreSQL. Most of my own web applications are written to work in both.

Unfortunately, as incredibly influential as I am at DreamHost (heh), I can't put up much of a fight against market forces. Basically, there just hasn't been enough demand for PostgreSQL for us to make it a supported offering at this point.

That's the main problem. Installing PostgreSQL itself is pretty simple (I have a copy on my laptop). The problem is that we'd have to develop the necessary hooks into our web panel, customer account management tools, etc. so that we and our customers can set up and configure databases.

That alone isn't too bad, as it'd pretty much be a one-time thing. The problem comes with having to administer the database application itself - while we're intimately familiar with the various tricks/techniques for keeping MySQL in line. We haven't got nearly as much experience with PostgreSQL, however, so there would be a learning curve involved.

We'd also have to monitor the PostgreSQL services to ensure that they remain up and responsive. This too would require a bit of coding, but more importantly it brings with it much more potential for Admin pagers to go off at any given moment. I'd prefer not to make Will any grumpier than he already is.

Again, this is all something that can be done, but generally speaking for such a "mission critical" feature - ie. something far more important to most sites than free counters or guestbooks - we prefer not to offer it unless we can be absolutely, positively sure we can A) support it with a decent level of quality and B) make it worth the time/effort spent on the part of our Admins.

Basically, if we're going to do it, we'd prefer to do it well. We don't want to be anything like those other web hosts you referred to.

Unfortunately, at this point we get more requests for InnoDB support in MySQL than we do PostgreSQL - so even if demand went up a bit that will probably come first. :|

- Jeff @ DreamHost
- DH Discussion Forum Admin