Every UPDATE in PostgreSQL is secretly an INSERT-plus-a-tombstone. The old row version stays on disk, fully readable to any transaction
Continue readingMVCC and VACUUM in PostgreSQL: Dead Tuples, Autovacuum Tuning, and What PG18 Changed
Every slow query investigation eventually reaches the same moment: you run EXPLAIN ANALYZE, and the plan makes no sense. Postgres
Continue readingReading EXPLAIN ANALYZE: Why Postgres Ignores Your Index
Every schema migration tool will happily tell you how to change a table. Almost none of them will tell you
Continue readingZero-Downtime Database Migrations: Expand-Contract, Backfills, and Locks
Every PostgreSQL connection is a process on the server. Not a thread, not an entry in a table — a
Continue readingDatabase Connection Pooling: PgBouncer, Pool Sizing, and the Math Behind Both
Every reporting query has a moment where GROUP BY stops being enough. You need the aggregate and the row it
PostgreSQL connections are expensive. Each backend process consumes roughly 10 MB of resident memory, holds a socket, and runs a
Continue readingPostgreSQL Connection Pooling: PgBouncer Modes, Pitfalls, and Production Config
Most production performance problems in database-backed applications trace back to the same root cause: missing or misused indexes. Not slow
Continue readingPostgreSQL Indexing Strategies: Choosing the Right Index for Every Query
Editor’s note, September 2026: PostgreSQL 19 is still in beta as of this update — Beta 3 shipped on August
Continue readingPostgreSQL 19 Beta 1: GROUP BY ALL, REPACK CONCURRENTLY, and What Else Is Coming
Editor’s note (September 12, 2026): Everything below still checks out against the official PostgreSQL 18 release notes — verified feature-by-feature,
Continue readingPostgreSQL 18 Features That Change How You Write Queries