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Frequently Asked
Technical Questions

Speed, Integrity, and Scale. Understanding the world's most advanced SQL-native simulation engine.

01 What exactly is Aphelion?

Aphelion is a high-performance, Rust-native synthetic data generator designed specifically for PostgreSQL and MySQL databases. It solves the "stale seed data" problem by automatically introspecting your schema and generating constraint-safe data that respects every foreign key and circular reference in your database.

02 How is it so much faster than other tools?

Aphelion is written in Rust and utilizes a unique Topological Dependency Graph. Instead of blindly trying to insert rows and catching errors, Aphelion calculates the exact order of operations needed to satisfy all constraints.

By pre-calculating this graph and using highly optimized parallel generators, it can sustain speeds of 10,000+ rows per second, filling massive schemas (like Magento or Odoo) in seconds rather than hours.

03 How does it handle complex "Exotic" types?

Aphelion supports over 80+ exotic database types, including:

  • PostgreSQL: PostGIS (geometry), JSONB, ltree, hstore, inet, and RANGE types.
  • MySQL: Spatial types, JSON, and native ENUM/SET.

The engine doesn't just treat these as "strings." It understands their internal structures and constraints, ensuring that a generated geometry field is a valid polygon and a JSONB field follows the expected schema of your application.

04 Is Aphelion HIPAA and GDPR compliant?

Yes. Because Aphelion generates 100% synthetic data locally in your infrastructure, your production PII never leaves your network. It doesn't "anonymize" your data; it creates "fake-realistic" data from scratch, ensuring that there is zero risk of reconstruction or deanonymization.

05 How much does it cost?

Aphelion is designed to disrupt the enterprise synthetic data market. While legacy platforms charge $20,000+ per year, Aphelion starts at just $49/year for individual developers, with flat-rate enterprise pricing that doesn't scale with your data volume.

06 How does it handle circular foreign key dependencies?

Circular references (e.g., Table A -> Table B -> Table A) are a nightmare for standard seed scripts. Aphelion handles this by identifying the Cycle Anchors during introspection. It performs a multi-pass insertion: first creating the rows with nullified nullable or defaultable foreign keys, and then executing a high-speed UPDATE pass to "close the loop" once all records exist.

07 Does it work with CI/CD?

Absolutely. Aphelion is a developer-first tool. It is delivered as a lightweight binary or Docker container that fits perfectly into your GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or CircleCI pipelines. With Deterministic Seeding, you can guarantee that your tests always run against the exact same dataset, every time.

# CI/CD Example aphelion generate --rows 5000 --seed 1234 --target postgresql://ci_db

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