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Google BigQuery VS Postgres-XC

Compare Google BigQuery VS Postgres-XC and see what are their differences

Google BigQuery

A fully managed data warehouse for large-scale data analytics.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source
Alternatives Is it good?
Postgres-XC

Free, secure and fast downloads from the largest Open Source applications and software directory - SourceForge.net

Rating
0 reviews
Alternatives Is it good?
Grapple
Do-It-Yourself Data Analytics & Business Intelligence, Powered by AI sponsored
Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, Google BigQuery seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 47 times since March 2021.

social mentions
47 vs 0
Data Dashboard popularity
100% vs 0%
alternatives listed
240+ vs 17

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

Google BigQuery
Postgres-XC
Website cloud.google.com sourceforge.net
Pricing
Open source
—
Listed in
Data Management Data Warehousing Data Dashboard Database Tools ETL Big Data +3
Databases NoSQL Databases Relational Databases Document Databases +1

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Google BigQuery 7 features
Postgres-XC 0 features
  • Scalability
    BigQuery can effortlessly scale to handle large volumes of data due to its serverless architecture, thereby reducing the operational overhead of managing infrastructure.
  • Speed
    It leverages Google's infrastructure to provide high-speed data processing, making it possible to run complex queries on massive datasets in a matter of seconds.
  • Integrations
    BigQuery easily integrates with various Google Cloud Platform services, as well as other popular data tools like Looker, Tableau, and Power BI.
  • Automatic Optimization
    Features like automatic data partitioning and clustering help to optimize query performance without requiring manual tuning.
  • Security
    BigQuery provides robust security features including IAM roles, customer-managed encryption keys, and detailed audit logging.
  • Cost Efficiency
    The pricing model is based on the amount of data processed, which can be cost-effective for many use cases when compared to traditional data warehouses.
  • Managed Service
    Being fully managed, BigQuery takes care of database administration tasks such as scaling, backups, and patch management, allowing users to focus on their data and queries.

Possible disadvantages

  • Cost Predictability
    While the pay-per-use model can be cost-efficient, it can also make cost forecasting difficult. Unexpected large queries could lead to higher-than-anticipated costs.
  • Complexity
    The learning curve can be steep for those who are not already familiar with SQL or Google Cloud Platform, potentially requiring training and education.
  • Limited Updates
    BigQuery is optimized for read-heavy operations, and it can be less efficient for scenarios that require frequent updates or deletions of data.
  • Query Pricing
    Costs are based on the amount of data processed by each query, which may not be suitable for use cases that require frequent analysis of large datasets.
  • Data Transfer Costs
    While internal data movement within Google Cloud can be cost-effective, transferring data to or from other services or on-premises systems can incur additional costs.
  • Dependency on Google Cloud
    Organizations heavily invested in multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud strategies may find the dependency on Google Cloud limiting.
  • Cold Data Performance
    Query performance might be slower for so-called 'cold data,' or data that has not been queried recently, affecting the responsiveness for some workloads.

No features have been listed yet.

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

Google BigQuery
Postgres-XC

Overall verdict

  • Google BigQuery is a powerful and flexible data warehouse solution that suits a wide range of data analytics needs. Its ability to handle large volumes of data quickly makes it a preferred choice for organizations looking to leverage their data effectively.

Why this product is good

  • Google BigQuery is a fully-managed data warehouse that simplifies the analysis of large datasets. It is known for its scalability, speed, and integration with other Google Cloud services. It supports standard SQL, has built-in machine learning capabilities, and allows for seamless data integration from various sources. The serverless architecture means that users don't need to worry about infrastructure management, and its pay-as-you-go model provides cost efficiency.

Recommended for

  • Businesses requiring fast processing of large datasets
  • Organizations that already utilize Google Cloud services
  • Companies looking for a cost-effective, scalable analytics solution
  • Teams interested in using SQL for data analysis
  • Data scientists integrating machine learning with their data workflows

Overall verdict

  • Postgres-XC is a discontinued open-source project that provided write-scalable, multi-master synchronous PostgreSQL clustering, but it has been superseded by newer forks and is no longer actively maintained, making it a poor choice for new deployments today.

Why this product is good

  • Was one of the earliest solutions to add horizontal write scalability to PostgreSQL through a distributed architecture
  • Offered multi-master synchronous replication allowing reads and writes from any node
  • Maintained strong consistency (ACID compliance) across the cluster, unlike many NoSQL alternatives
  • Inspired successor projects like Postgres-XL and later influenced Citus and other distributed Postgres solutions
  • Free and open-source, allowing full inspection and modification of the codebase

Recommended for

  • Users researching the historical evolution of distributed PostgreSQL architectures
  • Legacy systems still running Postgres-XC that need maintenance knowledge
  • Developers evaluating old codebases before migrating to actively maintained alternatives like Postgres-XL, Citus, or YugabyteDB
  • Not recommended for new production deployments due to lack of updates, security patches, and community support

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Google BigQuery 3 videos + Add
Postgres-XC 0 videos + Add

Cloud Dataprep Tutorial - Getting Started 101

More videos

  • - Advanced Data Cleanup Techniques using Cloud Dataprep (Cloud Next '19)
  • - Google Cloud Dataprep Premium product demo

No Postgres-XC videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
Google BigQuery
Postgres-XC
100% 100%
Data Dashboard
0% 0%
0% 0%
Databases
100% 100%
100% 100%
Big Data
0% 0%
0% 0%
NoSQL Databases
100% 100%

User comments

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Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

Google BigQuery no reviews yet
Postgres-XC no reviews yet
  • Database for Data Analytics
    blog.devart.com · Mar 2026

    Processing typeDescriptionUse casesCommon databasesProcessing typesProcesses data in scheduled intervals (hours, days). High-latency but cost-efficient for large datasets.Financial reporting, trend analysis,...

  • Data Warehouse Tools
    peliqan.io · Sep 2024

    Google BigQuery: Similar to Snowflake, BigQuery offers a pay-per-use model with separate charges for storage and queries. Storage costs start around $0.01 per GB per month, while on-demand queries are billed at $5 per...

  • Top 6 Cloud Data Warehouses in 2023
    geekflare.com · Apr 2023

    You can also use BigQuery’s columnar and ANSI SQL databases to analyze petabytes of data at a fast speed. Its capabilities extend enough to accommodate spatial analysis using SQL and BigQuery GIS. Also, you can...

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Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

Google BigQuery 47 mentions
Postgres-XC 0 mentions

View more

Tracking Postgres-XC since Mar 2021.

Alternatives to Google BigQuery and Postgres-XC

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