We’re launching Lyria 3.5 in Google Flow Music, with advances across musicality, lyrics, vocals, and creative control
deepmind.google·6d ago
AI Engineering
Hacker News·28d ago·5 min read
PostgreSQL Benchmark: AWS RDS vs. Self-Hosted on Hetzner (2026)
TL;DR
A benchmark comparison of PostgreSQL on AWS RDS, Hostim, and self-hosted on Hetzner revealed significant performance differences. Hostim achieved 2.5× the write throughput of AWS RDS, while Hetzner excelled in read performance.
✦ Why It Matters
Choose Hostim for better write performance or Hetzner for superior read speeds in PostgreSQL deployments.
Key Takeaways
- Evaluate write and read performance before selecting a hosting provider.
- Consider total costs, including high availability, not just listed prices.
- Use the benchmark results to inform your database hosting decisions.
- Reproduce the benchmarks to validate findings for your specific use case.
Full Summary
In July 2026, a benchmark test was conducted to compare PostgreSQL 16 performance across three platforms: AWS RDS, Hostim, and self-hosted on Hetzner, all configured with 2 vCPU and 4 GB RAM. The results showed that Hostim provided the highest write throughput, outperforming AWS RDS by 2.5 times and self-hosted Hetzner by 2.1 times.
Conversely, Hetzner demonstrated superior read performance due to its raw per-core CPU speed. AWS RDS consistently ranked as the slowest option for both write and read operations.
The analysis also emphasized that the listed prices of these services often do not reflect the total cost, especially when factoring in high availability. Engineers should consider these performance metrics and costs when selecting a PostgreSQL hosting solution to ensure optimal application performance.