Top PostgreSQL Monitoring Tools in 2025
Armed with the right PostgreSQL monitoring tools, database administrators and developers can identify potential bottlenecks, troubleshoot problems and make informed decisions to optimize their database environments.
Monitoring PostgreSQL databases provides invaluable insight into their performance, health and overall efficiency.
OpenTelemetry
OpenTelemetry Collector is an agent that pulls telemetry data from systems you want to monitor and export the data to an OpenTelemetry backend.
OpenTelemetry Collector runs on the same host as PostgreSQL and uses the OpenTelemetry PostgreSQL receiver to retrieve PostgreSQL metrics.
OpenTelemetry itself does not include built-in storage or analysis capabilities for the collected metrics, but a growing number of monitoring tools support ingesting data using the OpenTelemetry protocol.
Uptrace is an open source APM for OpenTelemetry with an intuitive query builder, rich dashboards, automatic alerts, and integrations for most languages and frameworks.
Using OpenTelemetry with PostgreSQL gives you a comprehensive view of your database's performance and its impact on the overall system. It helps you identify performance bottlenecks, troubleshoot issues, and optimize the database for better efficiency.
pgAdmin
pgAdmin is a tool for designing and managing PostgreSQL databases. It has a graphical interface for administering databases and features for monitoring server activity, query performance, and database objects.
The server dashboard in pgAdmin offers an overview of important metrics, including CPU usage, memory usage, disk space, and active connections. This dashboard provides a quick snapshot of your PostgreSQL server's health and performance.
pgAdmin has a log file viewer that enables you to view and search PostgreSQL log files directly from the graphical interface. This feature can be used to monitor database activity, identify errors, and troubleshoot issues.
Although not as comprehensive as specialized monitoring solutions, pgAdmin offers basic alerting and notification capabilities. You can set up alerts for particular events, such as database connection failures or high CPU usage, and receive email notifications.
pgBadger
pgBadger is a powerful log analyzer that generates detailed reports from PostgreSQL log files. It can help you identify slow queries, top SQL statements and general database performance issues.
pgBadger is a powerful open source log analyzer for PostgreSQL. It is designed to analyze PostgreSQL log files and generate detailed reports and statistics to help you understand the performance and behavior of your PostgreSQL database.
With pgBadger you can gain insight into slow queries, top SQL statements, resource usage and other valuable information to optimize and troubleshoot your PostgreSQL database.
pgBadget is a useful tool for PostgreSQL administrators, developers and performance analysts who want to gain deeper insight into the behavior of their PostgreSQL database and identify areas for improvement.
Percona Monitoring and Management
PMM is a free and open source monitoring solution designed specifically for open source databases, including PostgreSQL. It provides a set of dashboards and in-depth performance analysis capabilities.
Percona Monitoring and Management (PMM) is a free and open source platform designed to monitor and manage the performance of database environments, including various open source databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB.
PMM provides real-time monitoring of your database environment, collecting metrics and data at frequent intervals to give you up-to-the-minute insight into the performance and health of your database instances.
PMM provides easy-to-use and customizable dashboards that display performance metrics, system resource utilization, and other relevant information. These visualizations help you quickly identify trends and potential problems.
Prometheus
Prometheus is a popular open source monitoring and alerting tool that can be used to monitor PostgreSQL databases.
Prometheus can be easily integrated with PostgreSQL using the PostgreSQL Exporter. The exporter exposes data and metrics from the PostgreSQL database, allowing Prometheus to collect and store time series data for monitoring.
The PostgreSQL Exporter can collect a wide range of metrics from PostgreSQL, including database size, replication lag, available storage, latency, cache usage, and more. This provides a comprehensive view of the performance and health of your PostgreSQL database.
Prometheus can be used in conjunction with Grafana, a popular open source visualization tool, to create custom dashboards and visualize the collected metrics. Grafana provides an easy-to-use interface for creating interactive and customizable dashboards, allowing you to monitor PostgreSQL metrics in a visually appealing and intuitive way.
DataDog
DataDog is a commercial monitoring and analysis platform that provides specialized PostgreSQL integration, allowing you to monitor and analyze PostgreSQL performance metrics. It provides an easy-to-use dashboard and alerting capabilities.
DataDog provides a PostgreSQL integration that allows you to collect and monitor PostgreSQL metrics without any manual instrumentation. The DataDog Agent automatically scrapes PostgreSQL metrics exposed by the server.
The DataDog Agent collects various PostgreSQL-specific metrics such as database connections, query performance, buffer pool statistics, replication status, and more. These metrics give you insight into the health and performance of your PostgreSQL database.
DataDog provides an easy-to-use dashboard interface that allows you to create custom dashboards with graphs and visualizations based on collected PostgreSQL metrics. This helps you monitor database behavior and performance at a glance.
Zabbix
Zabbix is an open-source monitoring solution that supports PostgreSQL monitoring through its various built-in templates or custom scripts. It can monitor database performance metrics and generate alerts based on predefined thresholds.
Zabbix relies on agents installed on the target systems to collect data. In the case of PostgreSQL, you need to enable monitoring by setting up the Zabbix agent on the PostgreSQL server.
After importing the PostgreSQL template, Zabbix will automatically collect PostgreSQL metrics such as connection counts, transaction rates, query performance and more. Additionally, you can define triggers to detect anomalies and trigger alerts when certain conditions are met.
Zabbix allows you to create custom charts to visualize PostgreSQL metrics over time. You can group related metrics and display them on a single dashboard for better monitoring.
Conclusion
When choosing a PostgreSQL monitoring tool, consider factors such as the level of detail you need, ease of integration with your existing monitoring infrastructure, scalability, and the features that best suit your specific monitoring needs.
In addition, make sure that the tool is compatible with your version of PostgreSQL, as some features may be version-specific.
FAQ
- What are the key metrics to monitor in PostgreSQL? Important metrics include query performance, connection counts, database size, cache hit ratios, replication lag, buffer pool statistics, and system resource usage (CPU, memory, disk I/O). These metrics help ensure optimal database performance and health.
- How do open-source and commercial monitoring tools compare? Open-source tools like pgAdmin and Prometheus offer cost-effective solutions but may require more setup. Commercial solutions like DataDog provide more comprehensive features and easier setup but come with subscription costs. OpenTelemetry offers a middle ground with both simplicity and extensibility.
- Which tool is best for log analysis? pgBadger excels at log analysis, providing detailed reports on slow queries and SQL statements. However, tools like DataDog and OpenTelemetry can also analyze logs while providing additional monitoring features.
- Do I need different tools for development and production? Tools serve different purposes:
- pgAdmin is great for development and basic monitoring
- Production environments benefit from more robust tools like OpenTelemetry or DataDog
- Many organizations use multiple tools to cover different monitoring needs
- How do these tools handle scalability? Scalability varies by tool:
- OpenTelemetry and Prometheus are designed for large-scale deployments
- DataDog scales automatically with cloud infrastructure
- pgAdmin and pgBadger are better suited for smaller deployments
- Zabbix offers good scalability but requires more configuration
- What about real-time monitoring capabilities? Most modern tools offer real-time monitoring:
- DataDog and OpenTelemetry provide immediate insights
- Prometheus offers near real-time monitoring with customizable scrape intervals
- pgAdmin offers basic real-time monitoring of current activities
- Zabbix supports real-time monitoring with configurable intervals
- How important is visualization in PostgreSQL monitoring? Visualization is crucial for understanding database performance trends and identifying issues quickly. Tools like Grafana (with Prometheus) and DataDog offer rich visualization capabilities, while OpenTelemetry through Uptrace provides comprehensive dashboarding features.
- What should I consider for alerting and notification? Different tools offer various alerting capabilities:
- OpenTelemetry with Uptrace provides flexible alerting options
- DataDog offers advanced alerting with machine learning capabilities
- Prometheus with Alertmanager provides robust alerting
- Zabbix includes comprehensive alerting features
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