dbWatch vs pgwatch

dbWatch Control Center monitors, manages, reports on and maintains database environments from one interface. It includes more than 100 monitoring jobs and provides real-time and historical performance information. Teams can automate maintenance routines and schedule customizable reports. Supported database instances listed for licensing include Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Sybase ASE and MongoDB. The product also supports query profiling, wait and lock analysis, and execution plans. Deployment is hybrid: supported environments include on-premises and off-premises systems, AWS RDS, Azure and other clouds. It runs on Windows or Linux 64-bit servers, with Windows clients for its graphical interface. The maker lists SMTP and ServiceNow alerts, webhooks, scripts and CSV, JSON and XML exports. Security features include two-factor authentication, encrypted communications and DBA controls. The company says development, support and compliance processes are managed in Norway, aligned with GDPR and European privacy standards; it is headquartered in Oslo and was founded in 2001. The product is paid, with subscription pricing on request, and offers a free trial but no free plan. Licenses are per instance; a two-node failover cluster requires two licenses.

pgwatch is a free, open-source metrics collector and visualization solution for PostgreSQL databases. A remote daemon periodically connects to databases and reads PostgreSQL statistics using a normal database user, without special database rights or server-side extensions. Grafana presents the metrics and lets users add graphs; optional alerts can go through Mail, Slack, or PagerDuty. Metrics can be extended using pure SQL, and supported storage options include PostgreSQL, Prometheus, JSON File, and RPC. A built-in web interface manages databases and metric definitions and displays logs. pgwatch supports PostgreSQL 14 and newer, including single instances, high-availability clusters, pooled environments using PgBouncer or Pgpool II, and Patroni cluster managers. It is self-hosted, with a one-minute Docker installation described alongside custom installation options. The FAQ says it can be deployed fully on premises. Some operating-system metrics may be unavailable on cloud-managed PostgreSQL services because of platform restrictions.