PostgreSQL adds even more value.

And this is the case of both spatial extensions PostGIS and PgRouting. Whereas the first one is widely used in spatial projects, adding support for vector and raster data, topology, geometry index. PgRouting will add routing functionalities (route calculation, tour optimization, isochrones calculation, etc).

If performance, extendability, simplicity, fully-featured, are important for you, PostgreSQL and its many extensions should be part of your infrastructure for storing and querying data.

Products using PostgreSQL and its extensions (PostGIS, pgRouting, etc.)

Many products will use a PostgreSQL database to store data. This is the case of QGIS, geOrchestra and many web applications.
But there are a lot of useful tools that can be added and tuned to empower your database. GeoMapfish uses Full Text Search, unaccent and pg_trgm extension  in PostgreSQL to optimize search results, for example.

Camptocamp have been using PostgreSQL extensively for routing, optimizing querying in large datasets, and using triggers both for propagating data and checking spatial data topology (number of vertices, distance between vertices, self-intersection).

Another example is Baremaps, a tool used to create vector tiles from OpenStreetMap data. It uses PostGIS for importing the raw datasets and creating the vector tiles.

Use cases

EPFL Geoportal

The EPFL Orientation Plan application, or ‘Plan’, provides valuable information about the campus: offices, classrooms, points of interest, transportation system, restaurants, etc. Among the many functionalities offered, the route search is particularly useful.

Its key feature is that routing will include the passage from one floor to another, either by using stairs or elevators.

The calculation itself is performed in the database thanks to the pgRouting library.

More information about Plan.

SchweizMobil

For the SchweizMobil project, we use PostgreSQL on AWS RDS, storing over 6 millions user generated geographic features (+1 million each year), and monitoring the content of the databases with tools like Logstash-Elasticsearch-Kibana and Grafana.

NexSIS