For a recent project I have been working on, I have had to set up a database using PostgreSQL, and its been a great learning experience.
If you are going through the Full Stack Web Development curriculum here at Flatiron, your lessons have probably had you set up a simple database using SQLite (or will soon if you have yet to get there). While SQLite is a great tool for small applications, most larger, professional-grade applications use the more powerful Postgres. In fact, if you end up wanting to deploy one of your projects on the web through Heroku, you are required to build your database with Postgres.
So, the big question is “why use PostgreSQL instead of some other database system?”. Well there’s a lot of eays to answer that. For one thing, it’s opens source and well trusted in the industry. It also has a lot of functions that scale streamline the storage of large and complicated data. Because it is the industry standard, it has a lot of support out there from programmers across the world, so it can be a good idea to use.
Fair warning: it’s large, and can take some time to download, install, and learnhow to properly use. But it’s well worth it if you are going to be dealing with a large volume of data. If you are thinking about setting up a database for a new project, you might think about setting it up yourself. You can go to the website to download it or read the documentation.