P
Data & backend
Postgres
Open-source relational database used as the likely production database for Milk and Cookies.
Open-source relational database used as the likely production database for Milk and Cookies.
Postgres, formally PostgreSQL, is an open-source relational database, a system that stores data in structured tables and lets applications reliably query and update it using SQL. It has been developed for decades and is known for stability, standards compliance, and handling serious production workloads without falling over.
It's free to install and run yourself, and its extension ecosystem covers things like full-text search and geographic data. Most cloud providers also sell managed Postgres, so a team can get the reliability without managing the servers directly.
In Episode 005, Justin built three real companies with AI in about an hour, including a bakery marketplace called Milk and Cookies. When we asked what it would take to turn that prototype into an actual production business, Postgres is the database he named. The prototype itself was vibe-built fast, but running a real marketplace, with real orders and real customer data, needs a data layer that won't lose information or fall over under real traffic.
We keep Postgres in the stack because it's the boring, dependable choice underneath a flashy AI-built front end. It's free to run, open source, and has been a proven choice for production data for decades, which makes it a safe pick even when everything above it was built in an afternoon. The takeaway for an operator: build your idea fast with AI, but the moment you're taking real orders or storing real customer data, put a database like Postgres under it instead of hoping a demo holds up.
Postgres itself is a technical tool. Setting it up, writing queries, and managing a schema is developer work, not something you'd do by hand as an operator. In practice, this is fine: your AI coding assistant or a developer sets it up and talks to it for you, and services like Supabase wrap Postgres in a friendlier interface. It's worth knowing the name and roughly what it does, since it will likely be running quietly underneath any real product you build.
Genuine substitutes for Postgres that we've also run on stage:
Yes, Postgres has a free tier. Open source and free self-hosted; managed hosting costs vary.
Open source and free self-hosted; managed hosting costs vary.
Justin Novak used it in Episode 005 for storing production marketplace data for Milk and Cookies.
Postgres itself is a technical tool. Setting it up, writing queries, and managing a schema is developer work, not something you'd do by hand as an operator. In practice, this is fine: your AI coding assistant or a developer sets it up and talks to it for you, and services like Supabase wrap Postgres in a friendlier interface. It's worth knowing the name and roughly what it does, since it will likely be running quietly underneath any real product you build.
Tools we've also used live that can stand in for Postgres: Supabase.
| Category | Data & backend |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Open source and free self-hosted; managed hosting costs vary. |
| Free tier | Yes |
| Used live in | Episode 005 |
| Operator(s) | Justin Novak |
| Website | www.postgresql.org |
On AI4NTP, every tool is shown live by a real operator. These are the people who demoed Postgres on stage.
Founder and host of AI4NTP. He sold his first company from his college dorm room, and as a fractional CMO has helped scale multiple businesses past $50M in ARR.
Explore other tools we've demoed live at AI4NTP:
See tools like Postgres set up live, step by step, on AI4NTP, or get hands-on help putting it to work.