PGSimCity 3D Visualization Brings PostgreSQL Internals to Life

PGSimCity is an independent, non‑commercial web‑based 3D city that visualizes the inner workings of PostgreSQL. Each building and structure in the simulated city represents a specific component of a PostgreSQL cluster—such as WAL processes, buffer pools, and storage files—allowing engineers to explore, walk through, and interact with the database architecture without installing the database itself.

The project, created by developer Nikolay S., targets engineers who are proficient in their jobs but have little hands‑on experience operating a database. It aims to make concepts like checkpoint latency, transaction bloat, and synchronous commit more understandable through an explorable visual metaphor. The code is hosted on GitHub, has undergone specialist review, and includes extensive tests to ensure the visual model reflects PostgreSQL behavior accurately. The visualization is not affiliated with or endorsed by Electronic Arts, the trademark holder of SimCity.