What are the pros and cons of pgx?

pgx is a popular library for working with PostgreSQL in Go, often used as an alternative to the standard library database/sql.

Pros:

• High performance due to lower-level access to the PostgreSQL protocol.
• Support for all modern PostgreSQL features, including data copying (COPY), LISTEN/NOTIFY notifications.
• More flexible and powerful API, allowing direct work with PostgreSQL types.
• Can be used both as a driver for database/sql and as a standalone interface.
• Active community and regular updates.

Cons:

• More complex API compared to database/sql, which may increase the learning curve.
• Less compatibility with some ORM and tools designed for database/sql.
• Sometimes updates may introduce changes requiring code adaptation.

Example of simple connection and query with pgx:

conn, err := pgx.Connect(context.Background(), "postgres://user:pass@localhost/dbname")
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
}
var greeting string
err = conn.QueryRow(context.Background(), "select 'Hello, world!'").Scan(&greeting)
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
}
fmt.Println(greeting)