> PostgreSQL allowed us to use a fulltext search plugin to do everything in one system. No need to sync any data. No need to maintain and run two systems. It just worked and made us smile (after some tweaks of course). Simplicity.

I found MariaDB to be wonderfully simple to use for somewhat casual use cases: https://mariadb.com/docs/server/ha-and-performance/optimizat... and still reach for it in some personal projects, however the whole growing MySQL incompatibility is a big issue if the tech you use only officially supports MySQL and you can't (easily) get MariaDB specific DB drivers.

Personally, one of the best things about PostgreSQL is transactional DDL, every DB should support it. Also they handle JSON pretty nicely (though I'd prefer not to store data like that unless necessary) alongside excellent plugins like pgvector and PostGIS.

On the other hand, for things like queues, or even any sort of blob storage, I'd look at things like RabbitMQ or Garage (S3 compatible). Sometimes specialized software is nice for keeping things logically separated. I maintain that it's good to be able to divide your stack up by mechanisms/concerns (rather than business domain necessarily).