Extensions

PostgreSQL Extensions

This page describes how to work with PostgreSQL extensions on Thalassa Cloud DBaaS: which extensions are pre-loaded, how to list and enable others, and how to verify what is installed in your database.

Pre-loaded extensions

The following extensions are available and autoloaded on every PostgreSQL cluster:

pg_stat_statements — Track query execution statistics (frequency, total time)
pgaudit — SQL audit logging for compliance

You can use them without running CREATE EXTENSION; they are already loaded in the cluster.

List available extensions

To see all extensions available in your instance (including those not yet installed in the current database):

SELECT name, default_version, installed_version, comment
FROM pg_available_extensions
ORDER BY name;

name — Use this in CREATE EXTENSION name;
default_version — Version installed if you enable the extension
installed_version — Empty if not installed in the current database; set if already installed
comment — Short description of the extension

List installed extensions

To see which extensions are enabled in the current database:

SELECT extname, extversion
FROM pg_extension
ORDER BY extname;

Enable an extension

To enable an extension in the current database:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS <extension_name>;

Example:

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pg_trgm;

Note: Extension availability and the ability to install them depend on your cluster configuration and PostgreSQL version. Some extensions require superuser or preloaded configuration (e.g. shared_preload_libraries). In managed DBaaS, installing such extensions via CREATE EXTENSION may be restricted. These extensions may still be available for your database through the Thalassa Cloud API — use the API for databases to enable them when applicable.

Remove an extension

To remove an extension from the current database:

DROP EXTENSION IF EXISTS <extension_name>;

Warning: Dropping an extension removes its objects (functions, types, operators, indexes). Ensure no application code or objects depend on it before dropping.

Featured extensions

The following extensions have dedicated documentation on Thalassa Cloud DBaaS:

TimescaleDB — Time-series data and optimizations (Apache-2 edition only)
PostGIS — Geometry and geography spatial types and functions
pgvector — Vector data type and similarity search (IVFFlat, HNSW)

Full list of available extensions

The table below lists extensions typically available on Thalassa Cloud PostgreSQL. Exact availability depends on your cluster and PostgreSQL version; run the query in List available extensions to see the current list for your instance.

Extension	Description
`address_standardizer`	Parse an address into constituent elements (geocoding address normalization)
`address_standardizer-3`	Parse an address into constituent elements (PostGIS 3.x)
`address_standardizer_data_us`	Address Standardizer US dataset example
`address_standardizer_data_us-3`	Address Standardizer US dataset example (PostGIS 3.x)
`amcheck`	Functions for verifying relation integrity
`autoinc`	Functions for autoincrementing fields
`bloom`	Bloom access method — signature file based index
`btree_gin`	Support for indexing common datatypes in GIN
`btree_gist`	Support for indexing common datatypes in GiST
`citext`	Data type for case-insensitive character strings
`cube`	Data type for multidimensional cubes
`dblink`	Connect to other PostgreSQL databases from within a database
`dict_int`	Text search dictionary template for integers
`dict_xsyn`	Text search dictionary template for extended synonym processing
`earthdistance`	Calculate great-circle distances on the surface of the Earth
`file_fdw`	Foreign-data wrapper for flat file access
`fuzzystrmatch`	Determine similarities and distance between strings
`hstore`	Data type for storing sets of (key, value) pairs
`insert_username`	Functions for tracking who changed a table
`intagg`	Integer aggregator and enumerator (obsolete)
`intarray`	Functions, operators, and index support for 1-D arrays of integers
`isn`	Data types for international product numbering standards
`lo`	Large Object maintenance
`ltree`	Data type for hierarchical tree-like structures
`moddatetime`	Functions for tracking last modification time
`pageinspect`	Inspect the contents of database pages at a low level
`pg_buffercache`	Examine the shared buffer cache
`pg_freespacemap`	Examine the free space map (FSM)
`pg_logicalinspect`	Functions to inspect logical decoding components
`pg_prewarm`	Prewarm relation data
`pg_stat_statements`	Track planning and execution statistics of all SQL statements
`pg_surgery`	Extension to perform surgery on a damaged relation
`pg_trgm`	Text similarity measurement and index searching based on trigrams
`pg_visibility`	Examine the visibility map (VM) and page-level visibility info
`pg_walinspect`	Functions to inspect contents of PostgreSQL Write-Ahead Log
`pgaudit`	Provides auditing functionality
`pgcrypto`	Cryptographic functions
`pgrowlocks`	Show row-level locking information
`pgstattuple`	Show tuple-level statistics
`plpgsql`	PL/pgSQL procedural language
`postgis`	PostGIS geometry and geography spatial types and functions
`postgis-3`	PostGIS geometry and geography spatial types and functions (3.x)
`postgis_raster`	PostGIS raster types and functions
`postgis_raster-3`	PostGIS raster types and functions (3.x)
`postgis_sfcgal`	PostGIS SFCGAL functions
`postgis_sfcgal-3`	PostGIS SFCGAL functions (3.x)
`postgis_tiger_geocoder`	PostGIS TIGER geocoder and reverse geocoder
`postgis_tiger_geocoder-3`	PostGIS TIGER geocoder and reverse geocoder (3.x)
`postgis_topology`	PostGIS topology spatial types and functions
`postgis_topology-3`	PostGIS topology spatial types and functions (3.x)
`postgres_fdw`	Foreign-data wrapper for remote PostgreSQL servers
`refint`	Functions for implementing referential integrity (obsolete)
`seg`	Data type for representing line segments or floating-point intervals
`sslinfo`	Information about SSL certificates
`tablefunc`	Functions that manipulate whole tables, including crosstab
`tcn`	Triggered change notifications
`timescaledb`	Enables scalable inserts and complex queries for time-series data
`tsm_system_rows`	TABLESAMPLE method which accepts number of rows as a limit
`tsm_system_time`	TABLESAMPLE method which accepts time in milliseconds as a limit
`unaccent`	Text search dictionary that removes accents
`uuid-ossp`	Generate universally unique identifiers (UUIDs)
`vector`	Vector data type and IVFFlat and HNSW access methods (pgvector)
`xml2`	XPath querying and XSLT

Troubleshooting

CREATE EXTENSION fails

If an extension appears in pg_available_extensions but CREATE EXTENSION fails, typical causes are:

Insufficient privileges (some extensions require superuser)
Extension or its libraries not installed for your image or version
Extension requires shared_preload_libraries and is not loaded

Check what is preloaded:

SELECT name, setting
FROM pg_settings
WHERE name = 'shared_preload_libraries';

For extensions that require superuser or preloaded configuration (e.g. TimescaleDB), enable them via the Thalassa Cloud API for databases when the option is available. If an extension is not available or cannot be enabled, contact Thalassa Cloud support to confirm options for your cluster.