[Doctor_Fegg]

Postgres.app supports multiple versions, and doesn't put random files in /etc/foo - everything is in the right place for a Mac app, i.e. Postgres itself is in /Applications and the database is in ~/Library/Application\ Support/Postgres.

[Trufa]

That's interesting, but my situation is that I'm developing on macOS and deploying on a linux box so my postgres setup with docker can look virtually identical.

[mromanuk]

Why worry about one more level of abstraction, if using the same version of Postgres should be enough?

[Igelau]

> if using the same version of Postgres should be enough

[handrous]

If you're using Docker on the server, too, then it saves you from dealing with package management & version availability across multiple operating systems or distros to ensure that everything's at the same version no matter where it is. Config also looks very similar and lives in a consistent location regardless of the platform, which is nice, and between the docker file and either the startup command or the docker-compose file, you've also got documentation for exactly where any important data for the dockerized service lives and can easily prove that you've located all the important data (destroy the container, bring it back up... still looks good, no data loss? Then it's all documented). Again, with a single tool, regardless of platform.

No one has to give any shits that Fred's workstation runs the latest Ubuntu and Sally likes Arch and John is on macOS and the server is Debian Stable. They'll all run the same versions of your project's service dependencies... and the correct versions of the other five projects you're all working on, which don't need to be updated in lock-step, and Amy the part-time remote contractor you just brought on doesn't have to have her machine polluted with actual installs of any dependencies for your project outside the repo itself, just easily-eradicated containers.