PostGIS is a spatial database extender for PostgreSQL object-relational database. It adds support for geographic objects allowing location queries to be run in SQL. In addition to basic location awareness, PostGIS offers many features rarely found in other competing spatial databases such as Oracle Locator/Spatial and SQL Server.
I like how easy it was to set up with my existing postgresql server setup (with raster data). The performance of this solution has been exceptional compared to any previous solutions we have used over many years running our business applications on topographic maps - which are stored using GeoJSON or WKB files rather than traditional shapefiles! We had hoped that there would some way to use ESRI's ArcObjects API but so far no luck from what i can see here. A more flexible approach could…
Pros
It is free, open source software
Its very fast in terms loading large datasets for analysis.
Runs easily alongside other standard GIS databases such as SQL Server / Oracle/ MySQL..etc