PGConf.dev 2025 Summary | Technological Breakthroughs and PostgreSQL Future Outlook
On May 16, 2025, the PGConf.dev 2025 conference successfully concluded in Montreal, Canada. This annual event once again served as the core gathering place for PostgreSQL developers, users, and community organizers, focusing on discussing the future development of the database, sharing cutting-edge features, and fostering community collaboration. Organized by Slonik Events Canada, this conference provided a unique platform for participants to jointly drive the development of the world's most advanced open-source database.
Day 0: Developer & Extension Ecosystem Summit
May 13 featured informal sessions, with most participants being key community contributors and developers.
Developer Meeting
- Participants: Primarily community core code contributors.
- Goal: Solve technical or procedural issues difficult to resolve via email, reach consensus on solutions, and establish technical priorities for the coming year's development.
- Process: The first two-thirds consisted of breakout groups by selected topics (e.g., "Thorny Issues," policy proposals), with the final third involving reporting to the full group to form resolutions or action plans for the next year.
Extension Ecosystem Summit
- Purpose: Advance the development and distribution of PostgreSQL extensions.
- Format: Open working groups practicing research on 13 core topics, including package management, development tools, and API stability.
- Significance: Standardizing the extension ecosystem to evolve PostgreSQL from a "general-purpose database" into a "super platform for the database field."
The afternoon also featured the Postgres Community Summit, discussing how to lower barriers to entry and improve community initiatives. As a sponsor, Highgo prepared small gifts like keychains and stickers at the registration desk and engaged in deep exchanges with on-site PG core contributors.
Day 1: Core Technical Keynotes
May 14 marked the official first day of the conference, opened by core committee members Jonathan Katz and Melanie Plageman.
Featured Keynote Highlights
- David DeWitt (Keynote): "From RAP to Snowflake - A Look at 50 Years of SQL DB Scalability."
- Thomas Munro: Research on multi-threaded PostgreSQL.
- Peter Eisentraut: Sharing new features in C and POSIX.
- NTT Data Yuya: Re-visiting actual case studies of XTML.
- Sam Willis: Compiling Postgres to WASM using PGlite.
- Robert Hass: Exercises in Committer review.
- Bohan Zhang (OpenAI): Sharing best practices for scaling Postgres to new levels at OpenAI.
- Cédric Villemain (Data Bene): PostgreSQL Control Groups (cgroups).
- Alvaro Hernandez (OnGres): Reproducible Postgres.
Day 2: Technical Evolution & Lightning Talks
Frontier Topic Highlights
- Andres Freund (Microsoft): Detailed explanation of AIO (Asynchronous I/O) evolution. AIO is a major feature introduced in PG 18, aiming to optimize disk interaction efficiency in high-concurrency scenarios.
- Jonathan Katz (AWS): Sharing the latest progress on Pg Vector Search.
- Melanie Plageman (Microsoft): Sharing experience in implementing adaptive behavior in PostgreSQL, involving sketch data structures and probabilistic models.
During the afternoon lightning talks, Highgo shared details about the upcoming HOW 2025 Eco-Conference, co-hosted by the IvorySQL community and organized by Highgo.
Day 3: Unconference Discussions & Wrap-up
During the UNCONFERENCE session on the morning of May 16, twelve topics were selected by on-site voting for group discussions, covering core issues such as multi-threading, multi-executors, and global indexes.
At the afternoon closing ceremony, organizers announced that PGConf.dev 2026 will once again be held in Vancouver, with Highgo joining the organizational coordination as a host.
