Neues vom PostgreSQL Planet

Indexes exist to speed up data access. They allow PostgreSQL to avoid full table scans, significantly reducing query execution time for read-heavy workloads.

From real production experience, we have observed that well-designed, targeted indexes can improve query performance by 5× or more, especially on large transactional tables.

However, indexes are not free.

And in this blog, we are going to discuss what issues unused indexes can cause and how to remove them from production systems with a rollback plan, safely

This question appeared on IRC, and while I wasn't there while it happened, it caught my eye: » Can I not render this with timezone offset: select ‘2026-01-09 04:35:46.9824-08'::timestamp with time zone at time zone ‘UTC'; » Returns ‘2026-01-09 12:35:46.9824' which is without the offset. Let's see what can be done about it. First, let's … Continue reading "How to render timestamp with a timezone that is different from current?"

 I am not intentionally trying to upset anyone with this blog post or minimize the efforts of many brilliant people whom I admire. However, I connected with several people over the 2025 holidays who all had the same question: What is the future of MySQL? At the upcoming FOSDEM conference, several events will discuss this subject and push a particular solution.  And in several ways, they are all wrong.

As we prepare for the upcoming release of PostgreSQL Anonymizer 3.0, I took some time to check which platforms now support the extension. What I discovered brought me a sense of achievement that I wanted to share with the community.

More and More Platforms Are Embracing Data Anonymization

Over the past months, several major Cloud Service Providers have adopted the PostgreSQL Anonymizer extension, making it easier than ever for organizations to protect sensitive data.

The new adopters include:

Today I released v1.7.0 of the pgxn-tools OCI image, which simplifies Postgres extension testing and PGXN distribution. The new version includes just a few updates and improvements:

The work around RegreSQL led me to focus a lot on buffers. If you are a casual PostgreSQL user, you have probably heard about adjusting shared_buffers and followed the good old advice to set it to 1/4 of available RAM. But after we went a little bit too enthusiastic about them on a recent Postgres FM episode I've been asked what that's all about.

PostgreSQL has many small “hidden gem” features included (not to mention ~1K extensions adding a bunch more) waiting for someone to notice them. Some are useful every day, some are niche, and some (e.g. debug_* settings) exist only so that core developers could troubleshoot things without losing too much hair....

When we released the first beta of the pgEdge Postgres MCP Server back in December, we were excited to see the community's response to what we'd built. Since then, the team has been hard at work adding new capabilities, refining the user experience, and addressing the feedback we've received. I'm pleased to share what's landed in Beta 2 (now available) and what's coming in Beta 3 (currently in QA).

As part of its automated migration solution, HexaRocket, to simplify Enterprise-grade Oracle to PostgreSQL database migrations, HexaCluster is pleased to announce pg_utl_smpt PostgreSQL extension to create Oracle UTL_SMTP compatibility.

In 2025 we started a program to help colleagues who show promise for PostgreSQL Development to become contributors. In this post we highlight Florin's journey, a Staff SDE at EDB based in Italy.

If you’re located near Western Switzerland and the Geneva region (or you just want to visit!), you might find it well worth your time to attend CERN PGDay 2026. It’s an annual gathering for anyone interested in learning more about PostgreSQL that takes place at CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory.

Partitioned tables are a core PostgreSQL feature, but one area still causes regular confusion—even for experienced users:

How exactly does ALTER TABLE behave when partitions are involved?

Does an operation propagate to partitions? Does it affect future partitions? Does ONLY do what it claims? Why do some commands work on parents but not on partitions—or vice versa?

2026 Thursday February 19th Meeting 6:30pm:8:30pm

Please note the new meeting location. And please RSVP on MeetUp as space is limited.

Location: Multnomah Arts Center – The front desk can guide you to the meeting room.

7688 SW CAPITOL HWY • PORTLAND, OR  97219

Speaker: Mark Wong

Lots of us started with a Postgres database that incremented with an id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY. This was the Postgres standard for many years for data columns that auto incremented. The SERIAL is a shorthand for an integer data type that is automatically incremented. However as your data grows in size, SERIALs and INTs can run the risk of an integer overflow as they get closer to 2 Billion uses.

If your organization is standardizing on Kubernetes, this question shows up fast:

“Should PostgreSQL run on Kubernetes too?”

The worst answers are the confident ones:

What Is Table Bloat?

Table bloat in PostgreSQL refers to the phenomenon where "dead tuples" generated by UPDATE or DELETE operations remain uncollected by VACUUM, causing data files to grow unnecessarily large.

For VACUUM to reclaim dead tuples, it must be guaranteed that those tuples "cannot possibly be referenced by any currently running transaction." If old transactions persist for any reason, VACUUM's garbage collection stops at that point.

Introduction

PostgreSQL is the most advanced open source database system and it is widely used across many industries. Among its many strengths, extensibility places PostgreSQL in a unique spot. CNPG has been supporting extensions; however, this traditionally required building custom container images to include the necessary extensions.

This article is a shortened version. For the full writeup, go to https://github.com/ardentperf/pg-idle-test/tree/main/conn_exhaustion

This test suite demonstrates a failure mode when application bugs which poison connection pools collide with PgBouncers that are missing peer config and positioned behind a load balancer.

You saved my life. There’s not one day when I don’t use MERISE. An experienced developer told me this six months after attending my masterclass. When a senior pro says this with half a year of hindsight, it’s not just politeness. It’s because they’ve seen how much damage a lack of methodology can do in the long run. The Death of Data Modeling? 🔗Lately, I’ve noticed a frustrating trend. Many schools are skipping data modeling entirely.

When it comes to database optimization, developers often reach for the same old tools: rewrite the query slightly differently, slap an index on a column, denormalize, analyze, vacuum, cluster, repeat. Conventional techniques are effective, but sometimes being creative can really pay off!

In this article, I present unconventional optimization techniques in PostgreSQL.