RALEIGH, N.C., May 19, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- When pgBackRest's primary maintainer announced he would step away due to a lack of sustainable funding, Percona didn't wait. The open source database company today announced it has joined a group of companies to sponsor pgBackRest, one of PostgreSQL's most widely used backup and recovery tools, restoring active development and giving users a clear path forward.
pgBackRest is a foundational component of PostgreSQL backup and recovery. Thousands of organizations rely on it to protect critical data in production — including customers running Percona's Expert Support for PostgreSQL.
"pgBackRest has been our recommended backup solution/tool for years. When its future came into question, coordinating with other companies to keep it healthy was a straightforward decision — for our customers and for the community," said Peter Farkas, CEO at Percona.
The sponsorship brings David Steele, pgBackRest's creator and lead maintainer, back to active work on the project. It covers three specifics:
- Dedicated time from pgBackRest creator and lead maintainer David Steele for bug fixes, feature work, and community reviews
- Percona engineering involvement to onboard a new maintainer who can help grow into a long-term maintainer role
- Active effort to bring additional organizations into the sponsorship to reduce the project's reliance on a single maintainer
Popular open source projects often run on one or two people or are supported by just one company. pgBackRest was no different. Percona is investing in growing the contributor base so the project isn't a single maintainer away from the same situation again.
"Open source stays open," said Kai Wagner, Head of PostgreSQL Product & Engineering at Percona. "That's not a slogan. It's how we make decisions when situations like this come up."
Percona's PostgreSQL support and services, including Expert Support for PostgreSQL, are built on open source tooling, including pgBackRest. Customers using these services will see no disruption to their backup and recovery capabilities.
Open source infrastructure doesn't sustain itself. Percona intends to be part of why it does.
About Percona
Percona is an open source database software, support, and services company with a simple belief: organizations should have full control over their data infrastructure, without lock-in, without compromise, and without paying a vendor for the privilege of leaving. For 20 years, Percona has helped businesses run databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Valkey and Redis securely, performantly, and on their own terms — through freely available open source software, 24/7 expert support, and hands-on database expertise.
The way is open.
For more information, visit www.percona.com.
*PostgreSQL is a registered trademark of The PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada
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