Middleware

PgBouncer

PostgreSQL connection pooling with PgBouncer - pool modes and what each one breaks, sizing the pool, secure auth_query, and running it multi-core.

Read the PgBouncer guide

Concepts it implements

Connection pooling

Many client connections share a smaller set of server connections, because a database connection is expensive and mostly idle.

Least privilege

A component is granted only the permissions its task requires, so that compromising it yields as little as possible.

Backpressure

A saturated component signals upstream to slow down, rather than accepting work it cannot complete.

Where PgBouncer sits

How this component relates to the rest of the stack. Items without a link are not covered here yet.

Depends on

Must be present for this to run

PostgreSQL

Deployed with

Commonly run alongside

Alternatives

Solves a similar problem differently

Pgpool-II
PgCat

PgBouncer release support

1 supported

No published EOL policy. Only the latest release receives fixes, including security fixes, so treat anything below the current patch release as unsupported.

Release	Latest	Released	End of life	Status
`1.25`	`1.25.2`	Nov 2025	not published	Supported
`1.24`	`1.24.1`	Jan 2025	not published	End of life
`1.23`	`1.23.1`	Aug 2024	not published	End of life

Data as of 2026-10-01 from pgbouncer.org. Refresh with node scripts/fetch-versions.mjs.