Greenmask vs PostgreSQL Anonymizer

Greenmask is a free, open-source utility for logical database dumps, anonymization, synthetic data generation, and restoration. PostgreSQL 11 and later is fully supported; MySQL support is in progress and beta. Its subsetting tools can produce smaller development databases while preserving referential integrity, including cyclic and polymorphic references. Transformations may be deterministic or random, use dynamic parameters and conditional rules, and inherit across partitions and foreign-key references. Users can make custom transformers that exchange data through standard input and output, or use predefined templates. Greenmask supports local directories, S3-compatible storage, Azure Blob Storage, and SSH/SFTP. It uses PostgreSQL's pg_dump and pg_restore utilities for schema dumping and restoration, and its dumps can be restored with pg_restore. The utility is designed for CI/CD automation of anonymization and restoration. Its stateless, in-flight approach can anonymize data before it is persisted without requiring persistent storage of unmasked datasets in its normal workflow. Installation scripts support Linux and macOS; Windows is not supported yet.

PostgreSQL Anonymizer is an extension for masking or replacing personally identifiable and commercially sensitive data in PostgreSQL databases. Masking rules can be written in SQL with PostgreSQL DDL and kept in the database schema. Its documented approaches include anonymous dumps, static and dynamic masking, replica masking, masking views, and data wrappers. Functions can randomize, fake, partially scramble, shuffle, add noise, generalize, or apply custom transformations. A masked role can export anonymized data through pg_dump; masking rules should then be removed from the dump. Identifier detection searches common names in English and French, but may flag non-identifiers or miss identifiers. Installation instructions cover Linux and self-hosted PostgreSQL. The extension can be built from source on macOS, without community support there; Windows use is described through PostgreSQL on WSL2, as there is no native build. Installation requires superuser privileges, so a cloud database provider must offer the extension in its catalog. The plan is free. Commercial support is available separately.