Show HN: PgBeam – A globally distributed PostgreSQL proxy

3 points

4 months ago

PostgreSQL connections from distant regions are expensive. A new connection from Tokyo to a database in us-east-1 costs 400-800ms before the first query runs: TCP handshake, TLS (2 RTTs), PG startup and auth.

- PgBouncer pools connections but doesn't cache and runs in a single region.

- Hyperdrive does both but only works from Cloudflare Workers.

- Prisma Accelerate requires the Prisma ORM.

PgBeam is a PostgreSQL proxy that speaks the wire protocol natively. You only change one environment variable:

Before: postgresql://user:pass@prod.c7k2dfh4jk3l.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com:5432/postgres

After: postgresql://user:pass@02ljaccjaffjy8xvsw1xq6fdra.gw.pgbeam.app:5432/postgres

Three things happen:

1. Routing: GeoDNS points to the nearest proxy (6 regions today)

2. Connection pooling: Warm upstream connections, no TLS/auth cost per query

3. Query caching: SELECTs cached at the edge with stale-while-revalidate. Writes, transactions, and volatile functions like NOW() or RANDOM() are never cached.

Live benchmark at https://pgbeam.com/benchmark with real TLS PostgreSQL connections from 20 global regions, comparing direct vs. PgBeam (cached and uncached). No synthetic data.

This is a technical preview meant for design partners and early customers via a private beta before scaling the infrastructure. Feedback is welcomed!