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pgschema is a CLI tool that brings Terraform-style declarative schema migration to PostgreSQL. Instead of writing migration files by hand, you declare the desired schema state and pgschema generates the migration plan automatically.
pgschema dump → edit schema.sql → pgschema plan → pgschema apply- Dump: Extract the current database schema as SQL files
- Plan: Diff your edited schema against the live database, generate migration DDL
- Apply: Execute with concurrent change detection, transaction-adaptive execution, and lock timeout control
See more details in the introduction blog post.
Watch in action:
Why pgschema
State-based, not migration-file-based
Tools like Flyway and Liquibase require you to write and number migration files manually. pgschema works like Terraform: you declare what the schema should look like, and it figures out the SQL to get there. No migration history table, no manual sequencing.
Deep Postgres support
pgschema is Postgres-only, which means it handles Postgres-specific objects that generic tools skip: row-level security policies, partitioned tables, partial indexes, constraint triggers, identity columns, domain types, default privileges, and column-level grants. See the full list below.
No shadow database required
Most state-based tools spin up a temporary "shadow" database to validate migrations. pgschema uses an embedded Postgres instance internally and cleans up after itself — no extra infrastructure needed.
When to choose pgschema
- You want a fully free and open-source tool with no feature gating
- You want to version-control your schema as plain SQL and apply changes declaratively
- You need Postgres-specific features (RLS, partitioning, complex triggers) tracked in migrations
- You want migration validation without provisioning a separate shadow database
- You want a plan/preview step before applying changes, like terraform plan
- You're migrating from a manual SQL workflow and want structure without an ORM
How it compares
| | pgschema | Flyway / Liquibase | Atlas | |---|---|---|---| | Pricing | Free and open source (Apache 2.0) | Free tier; advanced features paid | Free tier; advanced features paid | | Workflow | State-based (desired state) | Migration-file-based | State-based | | Database support | PostgreSQL only | Multi-database | Multi-database | | Postgres-specific objects | Auto-detected and diffed (RLS, partitioning, triggers, …) | You write the migration SQL manually | Auto-detected and diffed | | Shadow database | Not required | Not required | Required by default | | Migration history table | Not required | Required | Not required |