Open-source SQL Server to PostgreSQL Database Converters

Database migration between advanced DBMS is non-trivial task that requires a lot of time and efforts. This article explores different tools for database migration from SQL Server or Azure SQL to PostgreSQL.

First open-source solution is pgloader, a well-known tool that migrates schemas, data, indexes, and foreign keys from SQL Server into PostgreSQL.

Features:

• loads data from various sources like MS SQL, SQLite, MySQL, CSV
• pgloader is distributed as open-source software under free license
• pgloader is a cross-platform software as it is a set of LISP scripts
• docker image allows to run database migration in container

Next open-source solution to automate database migration from Microsoft SQL Server to PostgreSQL is Sqlserver2pgsql script written in Perl.

Features:

• converts MS SQL schemas into PostgreSQL schemas
• generates Pentaho Data Integrator (Kettle) job to migrate SQL Server data to PostgreSQL
• generates incremental version of the job specified above to migrate changes of the database since the last run

Both of these tools do not support views, stored procedures, triggers and have no advanced capabilities on customization of metadata and migration rules. Besides, pgloader and Sqlserver2pgsql are available in console only that may be not comfortable for users not so familar with command line.

For those who look for easy way of running SQL Server to PostgreSQL migration or need to deeply customize the process, the most reasonable option is dedicated commercial software with intuitive graphical interface. One of those tools is SQL Server to PostgreSQL converter.