Theoretically I would agree, but practically I still wonder why we need different database engines for row and columnar storage if supporting different types of indices is trivial(TM) for Postgres?

▲

gavinray 2 hours ago | parent [-]

In theory, you don't. In practice, it's because the major SQL DBMS were architected around row-oriented storage and the technical effort to implement hybrid storage is large.

There are columnar storage engine extensions for many of the popular databases, though.

	▲	gfody 16 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		there are hybrid engines too, so-called HTAP (as opposed to OLAP or OLTP) notable efforts are: SingleStore (commercial) and OceanBase (foss)
	▲	goerch an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Interesting: I transferred the idea of a matrix being stored row or column wise to the database world and assumed this was a more physical than theoretical feature (not a native speaker here)? Looking forward to check out `pg_duckdb`, yes.