Unlocking the Power of PostgreSQL: An In-depth Look at Its Major Features

PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) with an emphasis on extensibility and standards compliance. It can handle workloads ranging from small single-machine applications to large internet-facing applications with many concurrent users. 

Here are some of the major features that make PostgreSQL stand out.

1.Extensibility: PostgreSQL allows you to define your own data types, operators, and functions. You can even write code in different programming languages without the need for wrappers.

2.ACID Compliance: PostgreSQL is fully ACID compliant (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability), ensuring data integrity and consistency even in the event of system failures.

3.Comprehensive Indexing: PostgreSQL supports a wide array of indexing techniques, including B-tree, hash, and GIN (Generalized Inverted Index), to name a few.

4.Full-Text Search: PostgreSQL comes with built-in support for full-text search, a feature usually found only in dedicated search systems.

5.Security: PostgreSQL has robust security features that include strong access-control mechanisms, views, and granular permissions.

6.MVCC (Multi-Version Concurrency Control): PostgreSQL uses MVCC, which allows for high concurrency and performance by creating a “snapshot” of data that allows each transaction to work with a consistent view of the data.

7.Open-Source: PostgreSQL is open-source and managed by a vibrant and independent community.

8.Support for JSON: PostgreSQL offers advanced JSON processing and allows you to store, query, and process JSON data.

9.Spatial Database: PostgreSQL supports geographic objects allowing location queries to be run in SQL.

10.Replication: PostgreSQL supports master-slave replication and multi-master replication through various add-ons, enhancing the read performance and data redundancy.

11.Partitioning: PostgreSQL supports range, list, and hash partitioning, which helps improve the performance of large tables.

12.Stored Procedures: PostgreSQL supports stored procedures in multiple programming languages.

13.Triggers: PostgreSQL supports triggers, which are automatically invoked upon certain database operations.

14.Views: PostgreSQL supports views which are a way of representing the records in the database in a more meaningful way.

15.Foreign Data Wrappers: PostgreSQL supports foreign data wrappers which provide a way to query external databases directly from PostgreSQL.

16.Table Inheritance: PostgreSQL supports table inheritance, which allows database designers to create a hierarchical structure of tables to represent real-world 

relationships between different types of data.

17.Role-Based Authentication: PostgreSQL uses role-based authentication, where a role can represent a database user or a group of database users.

18.Support for Large Objects: PostgreSQL has a large object facility, which provides stream-style access to user data that is stored in a special large-object structure.

19.Transaction Savepoints: PostgreSQL supports transaction savepoints, allowing you to roll back part of a transaction without aborting the entire transaction.

20.Window Functions: PostgreSQL supports window functions, providing more complex analysis of data than can be achieved with standard SQL aggregation functions.

Reference: 

https://www.postgresql.org/about/featurematrix/