pgmold vs Others

vs Declarative schema-as-code tools

These tools share pgmold’s approach: define desired state, compute diffs automatically.

Feature	pgmold	Atlas	pg-schema-diff	pgschema
Language	Rust	Go	Go	Go
Schema format	Native SQL	HCL, SQL, ORM	Native SQL	SQL
Multi-DB support	PostgreSQL	Many	PostgreSQL	PostgreSQL
Drift detection	Yes	Yes	No	No
Lock hazard warnings	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Safety linting	Yes	Yes	No	No
RLS policies	Yes	Yes	No	No
Partitioned tables	Yes	Yes	Yes	?
Terraform provider	Yes	Yes	No	No
Cloud service	No	Atlas Cloud	No	No
Library mode	No	No	Yes	No

vs Migration-based tools

Traditional tools where you write numbered migration files manually.

Feature	pgmold	Flyway	Liquibase	Sqitch
Approach	Declarative	Versioned	Versioned	Plan-based
Auto-generates migrations	Yes	No	No	No
Multi-DB support	PostgreSQL	Many	Many	Many
Drift detection	Yes	Preview	Yes	No
Rollback scripts	Auto (reverse diff)	Manual	Manual	Required
Enterprise features	No	Teams edition	Pro edition	No

When to choose pgmold

• Pure SQL schemas — no HCL or DSLs to learn
• PostgreSQL-only projects needing deep PG integration
• Single binary — no JVM/Go runtime required
• CI/CD drift detection out of the box
• Safety-first workflows with destructive operation guardrails
• RLS policies as first-class citizens

When to choose alternatives

• Multi-database support — Atlas, Flyway, Liquibase
• HCL/Terraform-style syntax — Atlas
• Embeddable Go library — pg-schema-diff
• Zero-downtime migrations — pgroll, Reshape
• Enterprise compliance/audit — Liquibase, Bytebase
• Managed cloud service — Atlas Cloud