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pg_tileserv

What it is

pg_tileserv is a lightweight HTTP vector-tile server for PostGIS, developed by Crunchy Data (github.com/CrunchyData/pg_tileserv). It exposes a simple URL contract — /{schema}.{object}/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf — where {object} can be either a table with a geometry column or a PL/SQL function with the signature (z integer, x integer, y integer [, ...]) RETURNS bytea.

pg_tileserv is the canonical thin-HTTP-shim instance of the database-as-tile-server pattern: the tile pipeline (grid-of-tiles generation, zoom-dependent geometry generalisation, MVT encoding) lives in PostGIS functions; pg_tileserv is only an HTTP frontend over the database connection — no tile rendering, no caching, no geometry processing of its own.

Configuration and deployment shape

• Configuration: TOML file (example in config/pg_tileserv.toml.example). BasePath overrides the URL prefix; Debug = true enables logging. Loaded via -c flag or CONFIG_FILE env var.
• Database connection: DATABASE_URL env var (libpq connection string). PGPASSWORD for auth when not embedded in the URL.
• Attribute columns pass-through: pg_tileserv packs all non-geometry columns from a spatial table into the MVT alongside the geometry, so the browser can restyle layers without another database round-trip.
• Function layers: user-defined PL/SQL functions become /schema.function/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf endpoints. Extra function parameters (beyond z/x/y) appear as query-string arguments.

Seen in

• sources/2021-12-01-zalando-maps-with-postgresql-and-postgis — Zalando's production instance: pg_tileserv deployed as a Kubernetes Deployment (replicas: 1) using the pramsey/pg_tileserv:latest Docker image, behind Zalando's oauth2-proxy at /tileserver/, reading the database via the Service the Postgres Operator creates (acid-geo:5432) with the reader role from the operator-managed Secret (map_db_reader_user.acid-geo.credentials). Configuration mounted via ConfigMap at /config. Tile URL shape as actually served: ${BASE_URL}/tileserver/geo.boundaries_europe/{z}/{x}/{y}.pbf. Also runs a PL/SQL function layer (population_hexagons(z, x, y, step)) that returns a hexagon-grid population heatmap computed via ST_HexagonGrid + LATERAL join to a Eurostat 1 km² grid + ST_AsMVT. First wiki canonical page.

Related

• systems/postgis — the tile-producing database extension.
• systems/postgresql — the host database.
• systems/leaflet — the typical browser consumer (VectorGrid class).
• systems/zalando-postgres-operator — the operator that provisions the database and secrets pg_tileserv connects to in Zalando's stack.
• concepts/vector-tiles — the format pg_tileserv serves.
• patterns/database-as-tile-server-middleware-replacement — the pattern pg_tileserv canonicalises.