Re: Postgres performance on Linux and Windows

Dusan Misic <promisic@gmail.com> wrote:

> My question is simple. Does PostgreSQL perform better on Linux
> than on Windows and how much is it faster in your tests?

We tested this quite a while back (on 8.0 and 8.1) with identical
hardware and identical databases running in matching versions of
PostgreSQL.  On both saturation stress tests and load balancing a
real live web site between PostgreSQL on Windows and Linux, Linux
came out about 40% faster.  Who knows what the number would be
today, with current PostgreSQL, Linux, and Windows?  Anyway, perhaps
it's a useful data point for you.

BTW, I wrote a tiny Java program to push data in both directions as
fast a possible over our network to check for networking problems
(it really showed up half duplex legs pretty dramatically), and when
everything was on one switch it ran 30% faster if both ends were
Linux than when both ends were Windows. I found it interesting that
with one end on Linux and one on Windows, it split the difference.
So this is not unique to PostgreSQL.

-Kevin