psqlODBC

PSQL ODBC is the official Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver for the PostgreSQL database. The driver is maintained by contributors to the PostgreSQL project and is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Ready-made installers are provided for Windows, and the source code can also be built on Linux and other Unix-like systems.

Features

Data Access: PSQL ODBC lets ODBC-compatible applications read and write data stored in PostgreSQL databases. It maps PostgreSQL data types to standard ODBC SQL types, and an application can open several connections at a time, to one or more databases.

psqlODBC lets any ODBC-compatible application, from Excel to custom C or .NET programs, work with PostgreSQL databases.

Driver Configuration: PSQL ODBC does not include database administration tools. Data sources are created in the Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator, where the driver's setup dialog offers options such as Use Declare/Fetch, server-side prepare, bytea as LO and row versioning.

Data Security: PSQL ODBC supports SSL-encrypted connections through the libpq sslmode, sslrootcert, sslcert and sslkey parameters, which protects data while in transit. Kerberos authentication is supported as well.

Platform Support: The Windows installers are provided as MSI packages for 32-bit and 64-bit systems, and they install a Unicode and an ANSI version of the driver. The ANSI driver can be used with applications that have limited Unicode support.

Performance: With the Use Declare/Fetch option, the driver reads the results of SELECT statements through a cursor and keeps 100 rows in a cache, which reduces memory usage with large result sets. Server-side prepared statements can also speed up repeated queries.

Support: PSQL ODBC is supported by the community. Documentation and configuration notes are available on the project website, and the source code and issue tracker are hosted on GitHub.

Compatibility: PSQL ODBC works with any software that uses the ODBC interface, including programs written in C and C++ and .NET applications that use the System.Data.Odbc provider. Office tools such as Microsoft Access and Excel can also connect to PostgreSQL through it.

Usability: PSQL ODBC has no user interface of its own apart from the setup dialog; once a data source is configured, it works in the background of the applications that use it. Driver versions follow the PostgreSQL release numbering.