Autobase — Self-Hosted PostgreSQL Database Platform

Introduction

Autobase (formerly PostgreSQL Cluster Console) is an open-source platform that automates the deployment and management of highly available PostgreSQL clusters. It provides a web-based UI for provisioning, monitoring, and maintaining PostgreSQL infrastructure without deep DBA expertise, effectively giving you your own Database-as-a-Service.

What Autobase Does

• Deploys production-ready PostgreSQL clusters with automated high availability via Patroni
• Manages automated failover and switchover between primary and replica nodes
• Provides scheduled and on-demand backup management with point-in-time recovery
• Monitors cluster health, replication lag, and resource utilization through a dashboard
• Supports cluster scaling by adding or removing replicas through the UI

Architecture Overview

Autobase orchestrates PostgreSQL clusters using Patroni for consensus-based leader election and automatic failover, with etcd or Consul as the distributed configuration store. HAProxy or PgBouncer handles connection pooling and routing. The management layer is a TypeScript-based web application that communicates with target servers via SSH to deploy and configure cluster components using Ansible playbooks.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Requires target Linux servers with SSH access for cluster node deployment
• The management console runs as a Docker container on a separate control node
• Configure cloud provider credentials or bare-metal server details in the web UI
• Supports deployment on major cloud providers as well as on-premise hardware
• Backup storage can be configured for local disk, S3-compatible, or cloud storage

Key Features

• One-click PostgreSQL cluster deployment with best-practice defaults
• Automated failover with configurable health check intervals
• Built-in connection pooling via PgBouncer integration
• Role-based access control for team-based database management
• Support for PostgreSQL extensions and custom configuration parameters

Comparison with Similar Tools

• Amazon RDS — managed but vendor-locked; Autobase gives you full control on any infrastructure
• Crunchy PGO — Kubernetes-native operator; Autobase works on VMs and bare metal too
• CloudNativePG — K8s-only; Autobase supports non-Kubernetes environments
• Manual Patroni setup — requires deep expertise; Autobase automates the entire stack

FAQ

Q: Which PostgreSQL versions are supported? A: Autobase supports PostgreSQL 14 through 17, with version selection available during cluster creation.

Q: Can I manage existing PostgreSQL instances? A: Autobase is primarily designed for deploying new clusters. Importing existing standalone instances requires manual Patroni bootstrapping.

Q: Does it support multi-region deployments? A: Yes. You can distribute cluster nodes across regions and configure synchronous or asynchronous replication per standby.

Q: Is Kubernetes required? A: No. Autobase deploys directly to Linux servers via SSH and Ansible, though it can also run alongside Kubernetes workloads.

Sources

• https://github.com/autobase-tech/autobase
• https://autobase.tech