Unicode support of PostgreSQL and its performance How is the Unicode support of PostgreSQL?

If I want to save Unicode data does it have to go through the conversion process while storing and retrieving? If yes then what is the performance of such conversion?

If there is such a conversion, will it come into play when storing simple ASCII data?
Unicode encoding support in PostgreSQL is stellar and is implemented using the UTF-8 character encoding.

If the client uses a different encoding than the server, automatic character set conversion occurs, paying a negligible performance penalty.

ASCII data does not require conversion to the UTF-8 character encoding, so no performance penalty there.

Please refer to the PostgreSQL Localization documentation for further information.