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What Is PHPPGAdmin Hosting?

PHPpgAdmin is a php-based tool for setting up, editing, and managing PostgreSQL databases and database servers. PHPpgAdmin was originally a fork of PHPmyAdmin, providing similar functionality as its predecessor, but for PostgreSQL databases instead of MySQL databases.

The entire code base of PHPpgAdmin has been rewritten from scratch since the initial fork, and the two applications have diverged somewhat, but they continue to provide largely the same features, differing only in what database technology they support.

Why use PHPpgAdmin

Running a database is a complex task. Not all sysadmins are database administration experts, and certainly most developers are not. Many IT managers and others without a heavy tech background get pressed into service as db-admins without being fully comfortable with "old-fashioned" terminal interaction.

Even experienced database administrators often don’t want to input the long and complicated SQL commands used in terminal-based database access.

PHPpgAdmin provides a web-based GUI (Graphical User Interface) for managing a PostgreSQL database or database server. This makes it more convenient to do typical tasks like creating and deleting databases, dropping or adding tables, and querying data.

Besides making common database tasks quicker and easier, PHPpgAdmin provides additional features such as creating visual representations of data structure and syncing between multiple databases.

PHPpgAdmin Key Features

Easy-to-use web interface

PHPpgAdmin’s browser-based interface is easy to learn and use. It provides access to the most often needed database management features. The GUI also provides a status dashboard with easy access to key database usage and performance statistics.

Support for all commonly used PostgreSQL functions

• Create, drop, copy, browse, alter, and rename table, views, fields, indexes, and databases.
• Write, edit, save, and run SQL queries.
• Manage PostgreSQL users and user privileges.

Import and Export Data

With PHPpgAdmin, you can load data from a CSV spreadsheet or from direct SQL queries, allowing you to import from any other type of database or data management system.

PHPpgAdmin also offers complete data export out to a number of different file formats, including PDF, XML, CSV, Word Documents, and SQL.

Export Data Models

Besides the data itself, PHPpgAdmin provides tools for creating a visual map of your database design.

Manage several databases on separate database servers

With PHPpgAdmin, a database administrator can have access to management features for many databases in one place, even databases across several servers.

This makes database administration much more convenient and less time consuming. It also provides the db-admin with the ability to easily create cloned deployments in multiple environments, such as the typical Development, Test, and Production environments. Off-site backups can also be created with no problem.

Reasons not use PHPpgAdmin

Using a web-based db management tool like PHPpgAdmin does not affect your ability to access the database or server in another way, such as from a remote terminal. Therefore, from a configuration and setup point of view, there’s no downside to trying out PHPpgAdmin — if you decide to stop using it, it isn’t like you have to remove it from the database.

Perhaps too easy

The biggest potential issue with PHPpgAdmin is precisely its strength: it makes it very easy to access, edit, and export data. This can be done without the protections of an application layer directing the flow and validation of data, and does not require special database expertise.

This ability can cause inadvertent data abuse and accidental corruption, leading to data loss and inconsistency.

While PHPpgAdmin may be easy for non-experts to use, any mission-critical database application should be managed by an experienced database administrator who understands how the database, and the management tool, are working "under the hood."

Not well documented

Compared to other similar tools like PHPmyAdmin (for MySQL), PHPpgAdmin is not exceptionally well documented. If you are not comfortable figuring things out on your own, or asking questions to developers directly over IRC, you may find using PHPpgAdmin a bit intimidating.

PostgreSQL only

Other than that, the only other reason not to use PHPpgAdmin it that it only works for PostgreSQL databases. PostgreSQL is very powerful, robust, and free, but it is not as popular as MySQL (which is used with WordPress and Drupal, among other common Content Management Systems).

If you need to use MySQL, SQLite, or another database, PHPpgAdmin is not the tool for you.

PHPpgAdmin Hosting

Most hosting plans support the basic requirements of PHPpgAdmin already, and many even provide one-click install and easy setup of it via their control panel.