What is Postgres/PostgreSQL? How to download and install PostgreSQL for Windows to handle massive data sets, read-write operations, and complicated queries? Refer to this post from MiniTool and you can find much information about Postgres download & installation. Let’s look at it.
Overview of Postgres or PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, also known as Postgres, is a powerful, open-source object-relational database management system that is used as the primary data warehouse for many webs, mobile, analytics apps, and more. Due to its reliability, great performance, data integrity, extensibility, and feature robustness, PostgreSQL is the preferred database for more and more businesses.
Originally, it was called POSTGRES. In 1996, it was renamed as PostgreSQL to indicate its SQL support. Later, the team keeps the name PostgreSQL and the alias Postgres.
PostgreSQL supports many features, including multi-version concurrency control (MVCC), various native data types, automatically updatable views, user-defined objects, asynchronous replication, foreign key referential integrity, point-in-time recovery, tablespaces, and more.
These powerful features can help build apps (for developers), build fault-tolerant environments and protect data integrity (for administrators). Besides, you can use PostgreSQL to manage your data no matter whether the dataset is big or small, define your own data types, etc.
Most popular programming languages are supported, for example, Python, Java, Perl, C#, C/C+, JavaScript (Node.js), Ruby, and more. Postgres is available on many platforms including macOS, Windows, Linux, BSD, and Solaris. If you want to build something with this database service, go to download and install it on your machine.
Related post: SQL Server Management Studio Download & Install & Use Guide
Postgres Download for Windows, macOS, & Linux
You may ask two common questions: is PostgreSQL for free? How do I download PostgreSQL? PostgreSQL/Postgres is free, with no fee even for use in commercial software products. You can easily free download Postgres for Windows, macOS & Linux, and see the guide below on Postgres download.
Step 1: Open your browser like Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or Edge in Windows and visit the official website of PostgreSQL – https://www.postgresql.org/download/.
Step 2: There are multiple PostgreSQL downloads for various platforms. To download Postgres for Windows, click the Windows icon to enter a new page. If you are using other systems, click the corresponding icon and download PostgreSQL.
Step 3: Click the Download the installer link to another page and then click the download icon from the corresponding system section to get a proper version.
For Windows, the download file is a .exe file. In terms of Postgres download Mac, you can click the download icon to get a .dmg file.
Install PostgreSQL for Windows
After getting a Postgres download file, now you can use the file to install PostgreSQL for Windows, Mac & Linux. In this part, we mainly focus on the installation on your Windows PC.
Step 1: Double-click on the .exe file and click Next.
Step 2: Specify an installation directory and go on by clicking Next.
Step 3: Choose the components you want to install.
Step 4: Choose a directory under which to store your data.
Step 5: Enter a password for the database superuser.
Step 6: Enter a port number the PostgreSQL database server will listen on.
Step 7: Choose the locale to be used by the new database cluster.
Step 8: See the summary information of Postgres and click Next to begin the installation after you are ready to install PostgreSQL on Windows.
To install PostgreSQL on Mac, double-click on the .dmg file and start the installation by following the on-screen instructions. The steps are similar to the ones in Windows. For Linux, it is a bit complicated to install PostgreSQL and you can follow the official help document.
Bottom Line
From this post, you clearly learn about what Postgres is and how to download Postgres for Windows and install PostgreSQL for Windows. Just follow the given guide to get this database service if you need it.