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by michaelcampbell 1922 days ago
Not going to wade into the "should" or "shouldn't" of this, but I have used postgres-via-docker for ... few years now, and it is a DREAM. And I never have to worry about versions or dependencies (at least I haven't yet).
1 comments

I've installed Postgres on my Mac with Homebrew, Docker, and https://postgresapp.com. There are arguments for each of them. On the pro side:

- Homebrew is a general purpose package manager, and Postgres is a package you might want managed.

- If you're using Docker/Docker Compose for a project anyway, that's the obvious way to do it.

- Postgres.app is a specialized tool just for managing Postgres installs, so it's hard to beat if that's what you need.

Some thoughts on the tradeoffs though:

- Homebrew really doesn't like the idea of "versions". It wants everything to be on the latest. That can be fine if you just need a tool locally, but if you want dev and prod to match, it is a pain in the ass.

- Docker isn't really very good at persistence. That's probably not a problem for local development, but you should be aware of it. Running it on a Mac introduces speed and memory issues you wouldn't otherwise have. And now obviously there's the M1 problem.

- Postgres.app is another thing to install. If you just need Postgres for one particular project you might not know about it or want to deal with installing something new.