PGSimCity - How PostgreSQL Works

jonbaer 356 points 40 comments July 27, 2026
nikolays.github.io · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (19 comments)

loveparade

I don't know what I am looking at but it is fabulous.

layoric

I love what is trying to be done here. Some feedback to improve would be to cut out a lot of the noise with the "Take tour". There are too many boxes and things changing on the screen to get a sense of what is happening. Also make it interactive rather than automatically switch onto the next subject. Being a passive observer to so much information trying to be conveyed is very confusing. I really do like these kinds of approaches to showing the inner workings of different kinds of tech, so think this is on the good path to being a very useful tool, but needs some focus rather than more data/graphs/info boxes.

skreem

This is really cool, I like having visualization to hold on my head! Also (assuming this is LLM-generated, apologies if it’s not) seems like the future of learning/self-teaching… gonna try and generate similar things for stuff I’m learning

Curtis_Guan

Understanding how scheduling works inside a database used to require numerous architecture diagrams to explain. I was amazed when I saw PGSimCity — it presents such a complex technical implementation process in such an engaging way. Since it's already open‑source, I think the same idea can be reused in other domains, such as cloud computing, Kubernetes, and so on.

narmiouh

I imagined as soon I saw the initial visual that I would somehow be able to enter a query and it would walk me through the flow through the entire system starting from input parsing to all the way to delivering output and perhaps along the way understand some of the autonomous processes that happen in parallel that aren't query specific but run constantly. What others are saying - fantastic attempt, but don't know where to start or where to end.

npunt

This is very cool, just some UX tips to make it more legible: 1. remove ~50% of the UI since it covers too much of a laptop screen 2. improve the camera controls so its easier to pan and zoom.

BowBun

Amazing, great work. Keep polishing this up!

bibimsz

i understood all that.

deadbabe

Someone should make a movie called “Postgres” which is about people living within a Postgres city, in the style of Se7en. “Every city has secrets. Ours have indexes.”

abstrct

This is amazing!

arjie

I can't believe "Rendering The First Frame..." is not "Reticulating Splines..." :) Cool UI.

gregsadetsky

Great work! When zooming out a bit, I'm somewhat sure that the 'blinking'/glitching is due to z-fighting. Just something you may want to look into (ie move 3d surfaces so that they're not at the exact same z)

dostick

It surely is impressive,but it’s just that - components of db service as buildings/machine. What it needs is narrative, purpose, with main actors clearly defined - client and data. demonstrating what is involved in the chain when data’s written and requested.

num42

Really great work! I've always wanted to build a CPU simulator(Full PC simulator) in this style. I still haven't fully figured out my own approach, but this will definitely be an inspiration for me. Thanks for making and sharing it.

Jonathanfishner

thats cool. n1. spent 15min looking on it rn

bazzingadev

Wow, cool projects are so back again

luciana1u

3.86B tokens to build a visual simulator of a database that runs on a fraction of that compute. we're using the expensive brain to draw pictures of the cheap brain.

manytimesaway

Besides the sadly obvious vibe-coding, just note that SimCity is still an active trademark from EA, so might be good to rename it.

LowLevelKernel

Wow. Can’t wait to explore the architecture

Semantic search powered by Rivestack pgvector
14,941 stories · 139,598 chunks indexed