For greenfield projects, native drivers (e.g., Npgsql , pgx , asyncpg ) are superior. However, when the requirement is “connect Tableau to PostgreSQL over ODBC,” psqlODBC remains the correct, stable choice – provided you tune the 5–10 critical parameters and avoid its known pitfalls around timestamptz and scrollable cursors.
| Alternative | Protocol | Pros | Cons | |-------------|----------|------|------| | (Go) + PGX ODBC bridge | Custom | Type-safe, fast | Not ODBC | | Npgsql (.NET) | Native .NET | Async, NodaTime support | Only .NET | | PostgreSQL FDW + ODBC FDW | SQL/MED | Pushdown | Complex | | ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity) | Columnar | Zero-copy | Very new | odbc postgresql driver
1. Introduction Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) remains a cornerstone of enterprise data access, providing a language-independent, platform-independent API for connecting to database management systems. For PostgreSQL, the psqlODBC driver serves as this critical bridge, enabling legacy applications (e.g., Microsoft Access, Excel, FileMaker), BI tools (Tableau, Power BI, Qlik), and custom software written in languages like C#, C++, or Python (via pyodbc ) to interact with a PostgreSQL backend. For greenfield projects, native drivers (e