DBmarlin vs PoWA

DBmarlin monitors database performance and tracks changes to help teams identify where SQL execution time goes. It captures SQL statement text and wait states, and automatically detects changes to schema objects, database parameters and explain plans. Its AI Co-pilot provides database tuning insights and advice. DBmarlin is available self-hosted or in the cloud, with Linux, Windows and web platforms listed. The free Starter licence covers one database instance, unlimited users and no time limit. Premium is listed at £999/year per licence and includes priority support; monthly pricing is unavailable, and prices exclude tax. Supported databases include MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, CockroachDB, SAP HANA, SQL Server, IBM Db2, Oracle, SAP ASE, Informix, MongoDB and Snowflake. Listed integrations include Datadog, Grafana, Harness, Instana, Jenkins, Liquibase, New Relic and Splunk Observability Cloud. Licensing counts active instances, databases or nodes depending on the technology. SAP HANA pricing is marked beta, with pricing to be confirmed. The download page requests a first name, last name and work email to access downloads.

PoWA is a free, self-hosted tool for monitoring and tuning PostgreSQL. It collects and aggregates performance metrics from database instances and presents them in charts. Local mode handles one instance; remote mode gathers metrics from multiple instances into a repository server and can include read-only standbys without restarting PostgreSQL when adding them. The project combines the powa-archivist extension and powa-web interface, with an optional powa-collector daemon for remote deployments. Supported statistics extensions include pg_stat_statements, pg_qualstats, pg_stat_kcache, pg_wait_sampling, and pg_track_settings; pg_stat_statements is mandatory, and the current version targets PostgreSQL 9.4 and newer. HypoPG support enables testing hypothetical indexes without creating real ones. PoWA 5 adds datasource views for replication, background writer, checkpointer, SLRU, WAL, and PostgreSQL 16 or newer I/O statistics, plus per-database snapshots. Metrics can be enabled or disabled, and custom extensions added without modifying PoWA.