Setting the PostgreSQL version and architecture

By default, pg-embedded uses a PostgreSQL 13 database. This version can be changed in multiple ways:

call Builder.setServerVersion() on the EmbeddedPostgres.Builder
call Builder.withInstancePreparer(b -> b.setServerVersion(...)) on the DatabaseManagerBuilder
set the pg-embedded.postgres-version system property

Setting the system property overrides all other settings.

pg-embedded downloads repackaged EnterpriseDB PostgreSQL releases from the Maven repository system using the io.zonky.test.postgres groupId. Any artifact available here can be used with pg-embedded as long as the version and binary architecture is supported.

More information about Zonky.IO PostgreSQL binaries.
List of all available PostgreSQL versions. Only 9.6 and later versions are supported by pg-embedded, older versions might still work but are unsupported (please do not file bug reports about older versions).

OS, package and CPU architectures

There is a babylonian confusion for naming things with modern CPU architectures. the following things are all the same:

x86_64, amd64 - Intel based 64 bit architecture
aarch64, arm_64, arm64v8 - ARM based 64 bit architecture
aarch32, arm_32, arm32v7, arm - ARM based 32 bit architecture

Java, the ZonkyIO binaries, postgres itself and the system OS use varying permutations of these identifiers.

For most operating systems, the system architecture and the architecture of the postgres distribution must match. However, modern MacOS systems can run both x86_64 and aarch64 binaries. Most of the recent ZonkyIO binaries contain both architectures (“fat binaries”) so the actual architecture is chosen by the OS and the distribution architecture is not as important. ZonkyIO creates packages with the x86_64 and arm64v8 names, however the x86_64 variants are much more up-to-date. For that reason, pg-embedded prefers the x86_64 packages even on modern MacOS systems. In some rare cases, it might be beneficial to force the arm64v8 variant by setting the pg-embedded.prefer-native property to true.

NOTE: The FlywayPreparer only supports PostgreSQL 10+.

Tested

OS	Architecture	Variant	Remarks
Linux	x86_64	RHEL / CentOS
Linux	x86_64	Debian 11 (bullseye)	Needs `locales-all` installed for database locales to work
Linux	x86_64	Alpine Linux
Linux	x86_64	Amazon Linux 2
Linux	aarch64	Amazon Linux 2	tested on AWS Graviton CPU
Linux	aarch64	RockyLinux 8	tested on Raspberry Pi 4
Linux	aarch32	CentOS 7	tested on Raspberry Pi 3B+
MacOS	x86_64	MacOS 11.6+
MacOS	aarch64	MacOS 12.5.1 with Rosetta 2 installed	All x86_64 binaries work as well, recent binaries contain both x86_64 and aarch64 variants.
MacOS	aarch64	MacOS 13.3.1 with Rosetta 2 installed	All x86_64 binaries work as well, recent binaries contain both x86_64 and aarch64 variants. Older x86_64 binaries (for 9.6 and 10) may not work.
MacOS	aarch64	MacOS 12.5.1 without Rosetta 2	Requires arm64v8 binaries or “fat” x86_64 binaries that also contain aarch64 variants.

Untested

OS	Architecture	Variant	Remarks
Windows	x86_64	-	untested, patches welcome
-	i386	-	untested