I have very limited experience with PostgreSQL personally. I've always been a Microsoft guy, so most of my back-end work with Access has been with SQL Server, especially SQL Server Express. That said, from what I've read and from feedback I've seen in the developer community, PostgreSQL is absolutely a capable and respected enterprise-grade database engine.

From a pure database standpoint, Postgres is powerful. It's known for standards compliance, strong data integrity, advanced indexing options, and solid performance. Many developers consider it on par with, and in some cases more feature-rich than, SQL Server. So technically speaking, yes, it can serve as a back-end for Access via ODBC.

Where things get a little more nuanced is the ecosystem and tooling. Access was built by Microsoft to pair naturally with SQL Server. Because of that, you get tighter integration, better documentation specific to Access, smoother data type mappings, and fewer quirks with pass-through queries, identity fields, and linked tables. With Postgres, you may run into more configuration overhead and occasional compatibility oddities that require workarounds.

Another consideration is administration. SQL Server Express installs easily on Windows, integrates with Active Directory, and uses familiar Microsoft tooling like SSMS. Postgres has excellent tools too, but they're outside the Microsoft stack, so there's a bit more of a learning curve if you live primarily in that world.

So the short answer is: yes, PostgreSQL is a reasonable alternative and plenty of people use it successfully with Access. But if your goal is the smoothest, most natively supported path, SQL Server Express is still the one that tends to "just work" with the least friction.

Can you use it? Absolutely. If you've got the drivers set up and you're comfortable managing it, Access will talk to it just fine through ODBC. Can I support you with it? Absolutely not. LOL. My wheelhouse is the Microsoft stack, so if you wander off into Postgres land, you're officially beyond the edge of my star charts.

If anyone here has long-term production experience running Access with Postgres, I'd be curious to hear how it's held up, especially regarding linked table performance and updateability.