diff --git a/unipept-database/Dockerfile b/unipept-database/Dockerfile
index 564bda6..97abe35 100755
--- a/unipept-database/Dockerfile
+++ b/unipept-database/Dockerfile
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-FROM mariadb:jammy
+FROM postgres:16.2-bullseye
 
 ###
 # Name: unipept-database
@@ -49,20 +49,14 @@ RUN apt update && \
     sudo \
     lz4
 
-
-# Configure curl to use the newly builded libcurl
-#RUN ldconfig
-
-RUN git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/unipept/unipept-database
+# TODO change to unipept repo once changes are merged to master!
+RUN git clone --depth 1 -b feature/postgres https://github.com/stijndcl/unipept-database
 COPY "db_entrypoint.sh" "/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/db_entrypoint.sh"
 
 # Sometimes, these files are copied over from Windows systems and need to be converted into Unix line endings to make
 # sure that these can be properly executed by the container.
 RUN dos2unix /unipept-database/scripts/**/*.sh && chmod u+x /unipept-database/scripts/*.sh
 
-COPY "config/custom_mysql_config.cnf" "/etc/mysql/conf.d/custom_mysql_config.cnf"
-RUN chmod a-w "/etc/mysql/conf.d/custom_mysql_config.cnf"
-
 RUN echo 'root:unipept' | chpasswd
 
 # Install Rust toolchain (https://rustup.rs/)
@@ -92,4 +86,4 @@ ENV VERBOSE false
 
 ENV SORT_MEMORY 2G
 
-EXPOSE 3306
+EXPOSE 5432
diff --git a/unipept-database/config/custom_mysql_config.cnf b/unipept-database/config/custom_mysql_config.cnf
deleted file mode 100755
index 0c4ddbc..0000000
--- a/unipept-database/config/custom_mysql_config.cnf
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,7 +0,0 @@
-[mysqld]
-secure-file-priv = ""
-local-infile=1
-default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
-innodb_buffer_pool_size=2048M
-innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 0
-innodb_file_per_table
diff --git a/unipept-database/db_entrypoint.sh b/unipept-database/db_entrypoint.sh
index dd6e48b..b467e68 100755
--- a/unipept-database/db_entrypoint.sh
+++ b/unipept-database/db_entrypoint.sh
@@ -21,11 +21,14 @@ echo "unipept" | su -c "./scripts/build_database.sh $VERBOSE-f $FILTER_TAXA -i '
 
 echo "***** START LOADING TABLES *****"
 
-# Data has been generated by this point. Now, we can load it into the MySQL-database for use later on.
-mariadb -uunipept -punipept < schemas/structure_no_index.sql
-echo "unipept" | su -c "./scripts/load.sh '/tmp/tables'" root
+# Data has been generated by this point. Now, we can load it into the PSQL-database for use later on.
+PGPASSWORD=unipept psql -U unipept < schemas/structure_no_index_no_constraints.sql
+echo "unipept" | su -c "./scripts/parallel_load.sh '/tmp/tables'" root
 rm -f '/tables/**/*.tsv.lz4'
 
+echo "***** START APPLYING CONSTRAINTS *****"
+PGPASSWORD=unipept psql -U unipept < schemas/structure_constraints_only.sql
+
 echo "***** START INDEXING TABLES *****"
 
-echo "unipept" | su -c "./scripts/index.sh" root
+echo "unipept" | su -c "./scripts/parallel_index.sh" root
diff --git a/unipept-web/Dockerfile b/unipept-web/Dockerfile
index 79e2200..a16f043 100755
--- a/unipept-web/Dockerfile
+++ b/unipept-web/Dockerfile
@@ -33,10 +33,10 @@ RUN apt-get autoremove -y \
 
 RUN git clone https://github.com/unipept/unipept-api.git
 RUN cd unipept-api && git checkout main && gem install bundler
-RUN cd unipept-api/config && printf "  host: host.docker.internal\n  port: 3306\n" >> database.yml
+RUN cd unipept-api/config && printf "  host: host.docker.internal\n  port: 5432\n" >> database.yml
 RUN cd unipept-api && bundle install
 
 ENV RAILS_ENV=production
 ENV DB_PORT=3300
 
-CMD cd unipept-api && sed -i "s/port: 3306/port: $DB_PORT/g" config/database.yml && bundle exec rails server -b 0.0.0.0 -e production
+CMD cd unipept-api && sed -i "s/port: 5432/port: $DB_PORT/g" config/database.yml && bundle exec rails server -b 0.0.0.0 -e production