Postgres.app is the easiest way to get started running and developing with Postgres on the Mac. Open the app, and you have a local Postgres database ready and awaiting new connections. Close the app, and the server shuts down. It is available for free download today, and will be available on the Mac App Store pending Apple's approval.
Postgres.app is designed so that most common programming libraries can find and it and link to it automatically - making it the easiest way to develop against Postgres on a Mac.
It comes with the most popular Postgres libraries and extensions available right out-of-the-box including:
- PostGIS 2.0 - Geospatial data and search.
- PLV8 - JavaScript procedural language using the V8 engine.
- hstore - Key-value data type.
Postgres.app supports Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion, and can be downloaded from http://postgresapp.com. It will also be available as a free download on the Mac App Store in the next couple weeks.
Our primary motivation for this project was to lower the barrier for using Postgres, allowing more people than ever before to try out cool features like hstore, full-text search, window functions, and geospatial querying.
Another motivation for the project was to simplify achieving parity between development and production environments. The majority of active apps on Heroku use Postres, but we found that many developers use SQLite or MySQL on their local development machines. This can lead to subtle and hard-to-diagnose problems. Dev-prod parity is on of the best-practices set forth in The Twelve-Factor App and is an easy, low-cost way to enhancing developer productivity.
Created by Mattt Thompson, Postgres.app is an open-source project released under the PostgreSQL License. Source code is available on GitHub.
Whether you are a professional developer or just getting started, Postgres.app provides the best Postgres experience on the Mac..