3 D's of software: distribution, distribution, distribution

The central argument is that software improves when people can use it, so distribution matters as much as product development. PgDog launched publicly despite serious flaws in its connection pooling, query routing, and sharding. Early users reported problems, and those reports accumulated into roughly 500 issues over the following year, helping the team identify what to fix. The author presents early, broad access - not a waitlist or lengthy sales process - as a way for technical founders to learn whether they are building something users need.

PgDog distributes its open-source edition through GitHub, Docker, and compiled releases for several processor types, with images built from each main-branch commit. Its enterprise edition is also available directly as Docker images, alongside a public Helm chart, without requiring authentication, sales contact, or payment details. The stated download counts are 3.69 million for the open-source product, 5.16 million for enterprise, and 323,000 for its control plane. Users can try PgDog in development, staging, and automated tests; experimental features are often released behind configuration flags. The team argues that this wider testing catches bugs beyond those found by its own integration suite, allowing a four-person startup to benefit from thousands of engineers’ use. In this view, public distribution is a practical route to faster iteration and production-ready software.