// the find
MobilityDB/MobilityDB
MobilityDB is a geospatial trajectory data management & analysis platform, built on PostgreSQL and PostGIS.
MobilityDB is a PostgreSQL extension that adds native temporal and spatiotemporal types to SQL — think `tgeompoint` columns that store a moving object's full trajectory, queryable with standard PostGIS spatial predicates. It's for anyone building fleet tracking, AIS vessel data, urban mobility analytics, or anything else where location changes over time and you want to query it in the database rather than in application code.
The temporal type system is genuinely well-designed: interval-aware interpolation, temporal aggregates, and predicates like `intersects(trip, region, during)` that collapse what would be multi-join queries into single expressions. MEOS (the embeddable C library) lets you use the same logic outside Postgres — useful for edge processing before data hits the DB. The ecosystem breadth is real: PyMEOS with async support, QGIS plugin, BerlinMOD benchmark with OSM-sourced data, Docker images that actually work. OGC Moving Features compliance means the data model isn't invented — it maps to a real standard if interoperability matters to you.
Linux-only for production; the Windows build requires MSYS2 and is clearly a second-class citizen. At 613 stars it's still niche enough that you'll hit edge cases with minimal Stack Overflow coverage — the mailing list is your support channel. The C extension model means you're tied to specific PostgreSQL major versions; upgrading Postgres means recompiling and retesting MobilityDB, which ops teams hate. The trajectory simplification and analytics functions exist but the docs don't give you much guidance on when to use Douglas-Peucker vs. synchronous Euclidean distance simplification — you'll need to read the academic papers to make good choices.