Last updated: October 2 2024
AlloyDB is a cloud native, PostgreSQL compatible database from Google. I recommend using it if you need a non distributed relational database and are already a GCP user.
Google claims AlloyDB exhibits 2 to 4 times better performance than PostgreSQL in pgBench and HammerDB benchmarks. I never trust vendor provided benchmarks and will be testing this myself in the near future.
One assured advantage it has over plain PostgreSQL is its implementation of columnar storage. I can imagine a situation where the ease of leaving my data right in the OLTP database outweighs the benefits of using a dedicated data warehouse, so this is a nice addition.
With that being said, GCP’s Bigquery integrates tightly with AlloyDB. This is a killer feature - zero ETL to a top tier data warehouse makes data engineering 10X easier.
While AlloyDB’s claimed performance features are impressive, it will ultimately run up against the limits of a single disk. As such, you should consider AlloyDB to be an excellent option up to a terabyte of data or so, but then you should consider a NewSQL database.
Because it implements a PostgreSQL compatible front end, it inherits the top notch encryption and RBAC features of that database. There are no security flaws, as far as I’m concerned.
AlloyDB is a proprietary database engine and is only available via commercial license from Google. It is available as a fully managed product from GCP.
While it is proprietary technology, it is PostgreSQL compatible, which means if you ever outgrow the database or want to switch to plain PostgreSQL for cost reasons, you may do so with relatively little pain.
With that being said, I find AlloyDB’s pricing to be straightforward and fair. You probably won’t jump ship for financial reasons, unless something unexpected happens.
GCP recently released AlloyDB as a downloadable program called Omni. This indicates that there are organizations which need to run database workloads on-prem, and like what they see out of AlloyDB.
I find this very interesting. The most common reason companies switch from SQL Server, Oracle, or other commercially licensed DBs to PostgreSQL, is the cost. AlloyDB Omni is not free, so they must feel that it provides a very strong value proposition.
AlloyDB inherits PostgreSQL’s excellent administration and tooling ecosystem.
Like PostgreSQL, AlloyDB gives you lots of options for creating highly available databases. If your objective is to maintain an SLA, you should be fine with what it provides.
However, if you have absolutely mission critical workloads that can’t fail, or need more advanced cluster control to increase throughput or scalability, you should consider a NewSQL database. If you’re on GCP, Spanner should be on your radar in this case.
AlloyDB, like PostgreSQL, has top notch backup and recovery options. Of course, all of this will be effortless if you are using it via GCP.
Impressively, AlloyDB allows you to use quite a few PostgreSQL extensions. Popular extensions like PostGIS, citext, pgvector, and many others are fully supported.
Aside from that, AlloyDB inherits PostgreSQL’s community - the best community of any database in the world. So, it’s doing just fine in that regard.
Because PostgreSQL, and by extension AlloyDB, is so popular, basically every ETL, ELT, and any other data ecosystem provider will provide support for it in some capacity. It’s impossible to list all of them, but PostgreSQL is almost always one of the first connectors built for any data product.
As mentioned before, you may want to consider adopting Bigquery as a data warehouse if you adopt AlloyDB. Bigquery is a great data warehouse, and being able to use it on your AlloyDB OLTP database is a fantastic feature.