What is pggraph?

pgGraph is a PostgreSQL extension that adds graph search and traversal capabilities to your existing database tables, without requiring a separate graph database system. The problem it solves is that relational databases like PostgreSQL are excellent for straightforward queries, but struggle with questions like "find everyone connected to Alice within two hops" or "find the shortest path between this person and this company." Normally answering these questions requires writing complex recursive SQL queries that are slow and hard to maintain. pgGraph works by reading your existing PostgreSQL tables and the foreign key relationships between them, then compiling that data into a specialized in-memory structure optimized for graph traversal. When you run a graph query using the extension's SQL functions, the engine navigates connections between records at memory speed rather than doing slow database joins. Your original tables remain unchanged and continue to be the authoritative source of data. You would use this if you have a PostgreSQL database with interconnected records, such as social networks, organizational hierarchies, knowledge graphs, or any data with complex relationships, and you want to run path-finding or relationship queries without managing a separate graph database system. The extension is built with Rust and integrates directly into PostgreSQL, supporting versions 13 through 18. It is in early alpha and not yet recommended for production use.