PostgreSQL Connection Pooling: Session vs Transaction Mode, PgBouncer, and How to Size It
Every PostgreSQL backend process is a full Unix process with its own megabytes of memory. That design choice buys you
Tag: Databases
MVCC and VACUUM in PostgreSQL: Dead Tuples, Autovacuum Tuning, and What PG18 Changed
Every UPDATE in PostgreSQL is secretly an INSERT-plus-a-tombstone. The old row version stays on disk, fully readable to any transaction
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Cursor-Based Pagination Done Right: Keyset Queries, Opaque Cursors, and the Pitfalls That Bite
Every API that returns a list eventually has to answer the same question: how do you hand out a million
Reading EXPLAIN ANALYZE: Why Postgres Ignores Your Index
Every slow query investigation eventually reaches the same moment: you run EXPLAIN ANALYZE, and the plan makes no sense. Postgres
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Zero-Downtime Database Migrations: Expand-Contract, Backfills, and Locks
Every schema migration tool will happily tell you how to change a table. Almost none of them will tell you
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Database Connection Pooling: PgBouncer, Pool Sizing, and the Math Behind Both
Every PostgreSQL connection is a process on the server. Not a thread, not an entry in a table — a
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Optane vs. Modern SSDs: Why the Fastest Drive Ever Made Is One Nobody Can Buy
In 2022, Intel quietly buried the fastest storage medium anyone had ever shipped. Optane, built on 3D XPoint memory, was
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Row Stores vs Column Stores: Why Analytics and OLTP Are Opposites
Every data engineer eventually has the same moment: the dashboard query that was instant on a million rows takes ninety
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PostgreSQL vs MySQL in 2026: A Practitioner’s Comparison
PostgreSQL versus MySQL is one of the oldest rivalries in software, and like most old rivalries it is mostly narrated
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SQLite in Production: The Database You Already Ship
Most applications don’t need a database server. They need durable, queryable state — and somewhere along the way the industry
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