---
title: Welcome to ParadeDB
---

## What is ParadeDB?

ParadeDB is an Elasticsearch alternative built on Postgres. We're modernizing the features of Elasticsearch,
starting with real-time search and analytics.

ParadeDB is a Postgres extension, not a fork of Postgres. The ParadeDB Docker image ships with Postgres 17
by default and supports Postgres 14+.

## Why ParadeDB

Today, Postgres users who need a search and analytics engine face two options: adopt an external service like
Elasticsearch, which is powerful but painful to run, tune, and sync, or use Postgres’ native search and
aggregations, which lack critical functionality and perform poorly over large datasets.

ParadeDB aims to be the best of both worlds, providing developers with the familiarity of Postgres and the
performance of a dedicated search and analytical database.

ParadeDB is a good fit for developers who:

- Have UPDATE heavy workloads that trigger frequent index rebuilds in Elasticsearch
- Want real-time search without complex and expensive ETL or CDC pipelines
- Require an ACID-compliant, MVCC-safe search and analytics engine
- Search over JOINs and want to avoid data denormalization
- Trust Postgres and don't want to operate a non-Postgres database/query engine

## Next Steps

You're now ready to jump into our guides.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card
    title="Getting Started"
    icon="forward-fast"
    href="/documentation/getting-started"
  >
    Get started with ParadeDB in under five minutes.
  </Card>
  <Card
    title="Search API"
    icon="magnifying-glass"
    href="/documentation/full-text/overview"
  >
    API reference for full text, similarity, and hybrid search.
  </Card>
  <Card
    title="Analytics API"
    icon="chart-simple"
    href="/documentation/aggregates/overview/"
  >
    API reference for aggregates.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Deploy" icon="server" href="/deploy">
    Deploy ParadeDB as a Postgres extension or standalone database.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>
