Best of PostgreSQL — January 2026

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   Article

   Lobsters·18w

   I Replaced Redis with PostgreSQL (And It's Faster)

   PostgreSQL can replace Redis for caching, pub/sub, job queues, and sessions using UNLOGGED tables, LISTEN/NOTIFY, SKIP LOCKED, and JSONB. While PostgreSQL is 50-158% slower per operation (0.1-1ms difference), it eliminates network hops between databases, reduces infrastructure costs by ~$100/month, simplifies operations, and guarantees transactional consistency. The approach works best for small-to-medium apps with simple caching needs but isn't suitable for high-throughput scenarios (100k+ ops/sec) or applications requiring Redis-specific data structures like sorted sets or HyperLogLog.

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2. 2
   Article

   Supabase·17w

   Introducing: Postgres Best Practices

   Supabase released Agent Skills for Postgres Best Practices, a collection of 30 rules across 8 categories to help AI coding agents write correct, performant Postgres code. The rules follow the Agent Skills open standard and cover critical areas like query performance, connection management, Row Level Security, schema design, and concurrency. The repository addresses common mistakes seen across hundreds of thousands of Postgres projects, such as missing indexes, RLS bypasses, and connection pool exhaustion. These best practices complement the Supabase MCP server by teaching agents proper judgment while the MCP server handles database connections and execution.

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   Article

   OpenAI·17w

   Scaling PostgreSQL to power 800 million ChatGPT users

   OpenAI scaled PostgreSQL to handle millions of queries per second for 800 million ChatGPT users using a single primary Azure PostgreSQL instance with nearly 50 read replicas across multiple regions. Key optimizations included offloading reads to replicas, migrating write-heavy workloads to sharded systems like CosmosDB, implementing PgBouncer for connection pooling, deploying cache locking to prevent cache-miss storms, isolating workloads to prevent noisy neighbor issues, and enforcing strict rate limiting. The architecture achieved five-nines availability with low double-digit millisecond p99 latency despite PostgreSQL's MVCC limitations for write-heavy workloads.

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   Article

   DEVCLASS·18w

   Open source MySQL repository has no commits in more than three months • DEVCLASS

   MySQL's GitHub repository has seen no commits since September 2025, coinciding with reported Oracle layoffs in the MySQL team. Commit activity has declined yearly since 2019, reaching its lowest point in 2025 since the project began. Industry experts suggest Oracle is focusing on proprietary MySQL versions (Enterprise, Cluster, Heatwave) while neglecting the open source community edition. Despite concerns, MySQL remains the second most popular database among professional developers according to Stack Overflow surveys, though PostgreSQL now leads. Experts recommend migrating to alternatives like MariaDB or PostgreSQL, though migration can be challenging due to SQL dialect differences.

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   Article

   Lobsters·18w

   Stop using MySQL in 2026, it is not true open source

   MySQL's development has significantly declined under Oracle's stewardship, with commit activity dropping sharply in 2025 and staff reductions announced. Oracle conducts all development behind closed doors, rejecting community contributions and treating MySQL as open source only by license, not practice. Technical issues have plagued recent releases, including data corruption bugs, performance regressions of 15%, and difficult upgrade paths. Oracle published 123 CVEs in 2025 with minimal transparency compared to MariaDB's 8. Migration to MariaDB is straightforward for most applications, offering true open source development with active community participation. Major platforms like Wikipedia and 57% of WordPress sites already use MariaDB.

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   Article

   InfoQ·16w

   OpenEverest: Open Source Platform for Database Automation

   Percona announced OpenEverest, an open-source platform for automated database provisioning and management on Kubernetes. Built on Kubernetes operators, it supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB, offering features like automated backups, scaling, and disaster recovery while avoiding vendor lock-in. The platform provides both a web UI and REST API for managing database clusters. Originally launched as Percona Everest, it's transitioning to independent open governance with plans to donate to the CNCF. The latest version adds PostgreSQL 18.1 support and NodePort networking, with future plans to support ClickHouse, Vitess, and observability integrations.

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   Article

   Reinier·18w

   Full Stack Engineering Course | Build and Deploy a Full Stack PERN Admin Dashboard in 2026

   This comprehensive PERN stack course teaches you to build a production-ready University Management Dashboard from scratch. The tutorial covers PostgreSQL, Express, React, and Node fundamentals, then guides you through implementing multi-role authentication, secure join codes, and Cloudinary media uploads. The course also explores using AI agents for rapid development by attempting to rebuild the entire Google Classroom-style project and comparing human versus automated approaches.

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   Article

   Hacker News·17w

   Replacing Protobuf with Rust to go 5 times faster

   PgDog replaced Protobuf serialization with direct C-to-Rust bindings in their PostgreSQL proxy, achieving 5x faster query parsing and 10x faster deparsing. The team forked pg_query.rs and used bindgen with AI-assisted code generation to create 6,000 lines of recursive conversion code that maps C structs directly to Rust. Profiling revealed Protobuf deserialization as the bottleneck, not the Postgres parser itself. The new implementation uses unsafe Rust with recursive algorithms for better CPU cache locality and zero additional memory allocation, resulting in 25% overall performance improvement in pgbench benchmarks.

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   Article

   Noted·18w

   Portabase: A Lightweight Self-Hosted Database Backup Solution

   Portabase is a self-hosted database backup and restore tool supporting PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB. It uses a central server for management and lightweight agents that operate in outbound pull mode, eliminating the need to expose databases to the internet. The platform features three retention strategies (fixed count, time-based, GFS rotation), supports S3-compatible storage backends, and integrates with notification platforms like Slack and Discord. The central server is built with Next.js 16 and PostgreSQL, while agents have been refactored from Python to Rust for better performance and a 4x smaller Docker image.

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    Video

    Kevin Fang·19w

    Dev Picks the Wrong Database, Takes Down Company

    Element Creations experienced a 24-hour outage of the matrix.org home server after an engineer accidentally deleted the production database while attempting to restore a failed server. The incident began with a hardware failure requiring database migration, but confusion over which server was primary led to running a destructive command on the wrong machine. Recovery took over a day due to slow backup restoration (51TB), a bug in their backup tool that wasn't patched in production, and slow write-ahead log replay. The postmortem emphasizes faster backup restoration strategies, including local snapshots using copy-on-write filesystems like ZFS, and highlights how operational errors during high-pressure situations are nearly inevitable.

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    Article

    Neon·17w

    The Neon VS Code Extension Just Got a Big Update

    Neon's VS Code extension has been rebuilt to provide native database management directly in the editor. The update removes the Docker-based local proxy, automatically detects Neon connection strings in projects, and enables developers to browse schemas, manage tables, run queries, and switch between Neon branches without leaving VS Code. The extension now includes built-in MCP server support and offers a streamlined authentication flow with automatic project detection.

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    Article

    ClickHouse·17w

    Fast, scalable, enterprise-grade Postgres natively integrated with ClickHouse

    ClickHouse announces a managed Postgres service backed by NVMe storage, delivering up to 10X faster performance for disk-bound workloads. The service integrates natively with ClickHouse through CDC capabilities and the pg_clickhouse extension, enabling a unified data stack that combines transactional (Postgres) and analytical (ClickHouse) workloads. Built in partnership with Ubicloud, it offers enterprise-grade features including high availability, automatic backups, and point-in-time recovery, with all integration components being open source.

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    Article

    Lobsters·19w

    PostgreSQL 18 RETURNING Enhancements: A Game Changer for Modern Applications

    PostgreSQL 18 introduces enhanced RETURNING clause capabilities with OLD and NEW aliases, allowing developers to capture both before and after states of data in INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and MERGE operations within a single atomic statement. This eliminates the need for separate SELECT queries, complex triggers, or application-level change tracking. The feature is particularly powerful for MERGE operations, enabling sophisticated upsert patterns with complete visibility into what changed. Practical examples demonstrate building audit trails, tracking inventory changes, and comparing values without additional database round trips or trigger overhead.

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    Article

    Neon·17w

    Building TanStack.com with Neon and TanStack (duh)

    TanStack.com runs on its own stack: TanStack Start as the full-stack framework, TanStack Query for data fetching, and Neon with Drizzle for Postgres persistence. The setup powers documentation and community features serving millions of visitors. Neon integrates seamlessly through the TanStack Start CLI, offering instant database provisioning with a claim-later workflow, automatic compute autoscaling, and branching for development. The architecture uses a serverless runtime with React frontend and Postgres backend, requiring minimal configuration.

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    Article

    PostgreSQL·19w

    Introducing pgpm: A Package Manager for Modular PostgreSQL

    pgpm is a new package manager for PostgreSQL that enables developers to share and reuse application-level database logic (schemas, tables, functions, policies, triggers) as modular, versioned packages. Unlike traditional PostgreSQL extensions that operate at the system level, pgpm works at the application layer using pure SQL, requiring no superuser access or compilation. It organizes code into workspaces with explicit dependency management, automatic resolution, and deterministic deployment order. The tool supports test-driven development with ephemeral databases and CI/CD integration, drawing inspiration from Sqitch while adding recursive composition and modular packaging capabilities.

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    Article

    Datadog·16w

    Debug PostgreSQL query latency faster with EXPLAIN ANALYZE in Datadog Database Monitoring

    Datadog Database Monitoring now automatically collects PostgreSQL EXPLAIN ANALYZE execution plans to help troubleshoot slow queries. The feature processes plans captured by PostgreSQL's auto_explain extension, correlates them with APM traces, and provides interactive visualizations. Key use cases include identifying incorrect row estimates that cause inefficient join strategies, and analyzing cache hits versus disk reads to determine whether performance issues stem from I/O bottlenecks or query optimization needs.

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    Article

    depesz·19w

    Waiting for PostgreSQL 19 – Implement ALTER TABLE … MERGE

    PostgreSQL 19 introduces ALTER TABLE commands for merging and splitting partitions. The new MERGE PARTITIONS command combines multiple partitions into one, while SPLIT PARTITION divides a single partition into several. Both operations currently hold ACCESS EXCLUSIVE locks during execution, making them unsuitable for large tables under high load, but they provide a foundation for future optimizations with reduced locking and potential parallelism. These features were previously attempted in PostgreSQL 17 but were rolled back due to issues.

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    Article

    PostgreSQL·17w

    PostgreSQL: pgmoneta 0.20

    pgmoneta 0.20.0 has been released with several improvements including redesigned locking for backup repositories, enhanced S3 support, and Grafana 12 compatibility. New features include a configuration file for pgmoneta-cli, interactive mode for pgmoneta-walinfo, WAL stream filtering support via pgmoneta-walfilter, and an initial Model Context Protocol server. pgmoneta is an open-source backup and restore solution for PostgreSQL 14+ that supports full and incremental backups, multiple compression formats, encryption, WAL shipping, and remote management.

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    Article

    Supabase·16w

    Supabase PrivateLink is now available

    Supabase PrivateLink enables database connections through AWS private networks without public internet exposure. Using AWS VPC Lattice, it allows applications to connect to Supabase databases as if they're inside your own VPC. This addresses compliance requirements for regulated industries and reduces attack surface by eliminating public endpoints. Currently in Beta, it supports AWS VPCs in the same region, covers Postgres and PgBouncer connections (but not other Supabase services), and requires Team or Enterprise plans. Setup involves sharing AWS account details, accepting resource shares, creating VPC endpoints, and updating connection strings.

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    Article

    Daily Dose of Data Science | Avi Chawla | Substack·17w

    Your RAG System Has a Hidden UX Problem

    RAG systems often use semantic retrieval but fall back to keyword-based highlighting, creating a UX disconnect where users can't see why documents are relevant. Zilliz released an open-source semantic highlighting model that identifies semantically relevant text spans instead of just keyword matches. The bilingual model (English/Chinese) handles 8K context windows, runs fast enough for production use, and outperforms existing solutions on both in-domain and out-of-domain benchmarks. It's being integrated into Milvus as a native API and is available on Hugging Face under MIT license.

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    Article

    PostgreSQL·17w

    pgmetrics 1.19 released

    pgmetrics version 1.19 has been released. This open-source tool collects 350+ metrics from PostgreSQL servers and displays them in text format or exports as JSON/CSV. It supports managed PostgreSQL services (AWS, Azure, GCP) and works with Citus, PgBouncer, and Pgpool. The tool is zero-dependency and comes as a single binary.

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