A Field Guide to Alternative Storage Engines for PostgreSQL
Summary
The Field Guide surveys PostgreSQL alternative storage engines via the TAM API, detailing four storage categories (heap replacements, columnar TAMs, lakehouse-backed TAMs, and domain-specific TAMs) and evaluating notable projects (OrioleDB, ZHeap, Citus columnar, Hydra, storage_engine, pg_mooncake, pg_duckdb, ParadeDB, Timescale Hypercore, and pg_sorted_heap). It highlights architectural constraints, maturity, and benchmarking considerations to help DBAs choose appropriate storage options for OLTP vs. analytics workloads in 2026.