Postgres FM

Episodi

• pgBackRest 03.07.2026 1h 13min

  Nik and Michael are joined by David Steele to talk all things pgBackRest. Here are some links to things they mentioned: David Steele https://postgres.fm/people/david-steelepgBackRest https://pgbackrest.orgpg_basebackup https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/app-pgbasebackup.htmlBarman https://pgbarman.orgpgmoneta https://github.com/pgmoneta/pgmonetaWAL-G https://github.com/wal-g/wal-gReturn pg_control from pg_backup_stop (patch proposal) https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/86436ff9-eb98-4c8a-825e-3bcae022107b%40pgbackrest.org#e36e2ad2f410d1a9a1152e36aa66bb48Add StorageReadMulti for prefetched multi-file/range reads from object stores (pgBackRest change that needs review) https://github.com/pgbackrest/pgbackrest/pull/2783pg_hardstorage https://github.com/cybertec-postgresql/pg_hardstorageWhy the cycle of open-source sustainability needs to be virtuous (blog post by Gabriele Bartolini) https://www.gabrielebartolini.it/articles/2026/04/why-the-cycle-of-open-source-sustainability-needs-to-be-virtuousARIN https://www.arin.netStefan Fercot https://pgstef.github.io/aboutpgBackRest sponsors at the time of recording: AWS, Supabase, pgEdge, Tiger Data, Percona, Eon, Xata, Dalibo, Data Egret~~~00:00 – Intro & pgBackRest origin story03:07 – Could pgBackRest live in Postgres core? Why it hasn't happened11:37 – Primary vs. standby backups & corruption safety20:36 – Measuring RPO & RTO in practice26:20 – Checksum performance & S3 storage class tips30:02 – Standby replay bottleneck35:12 – Log shipping, streaming replication, and sharding44:56 – Maintenance reality & the sponsorship crisis47:41 – What's next: repo-to-repo backup & RPO-zero streaming56:00 – Incremental backup1:05:01 – Reliability philosophy1:10:05 – Second maintainer, community growth & wrap-up~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• autovacuum 29.05.2026 46min

  Nik and Michael discuss autovacuum, including what it does, and the basics of why and how to tune it.  Here are some links to things they mentioned: autovacuum https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/routine-vacuuming.html#AUTOVACUUMautovacuum configuration parameters https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-vacuum.html#RUNTIME-CONFIG-AUTOVACUUMWhat’s Missing in Postgres? (our episode with Bruce Momjian) https://postgres.fm/episodes/what-s-missing-in-postgrespg_squeeze (our episode with Antonín Houska) https://postgres.fm/episodes/pg_squeezeMy queries to monitor autovacuum (post by Laurenz Albe) https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/monitor-autovacuum-my-queries/Autovacuum Tuning Basics (post by Tomas Vondra, originally for 2nd Quadrant blog) https://www.enterprisedb.com/blog/autovacuum-tuning-basicsZero autovacuum_vacuum_cost_delay, Write Storms, and You (post by Jeremy Schneider) https://ardentperf.com/2026/04/12/zero-autovacuum_cost_delay-write-storms-and-you/Our episode on long-running transactions / xmin horizon https://postgres.fm/episodes/long-running-transactions~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• pg_flight_recorder 15.05.2026 43min

  Nik and Michael are joined by David Ventimiglia to discuss pg_flight_recorder, a new tool he created for monitoring a Postgres database from within. Here are some links to things they mentioned: David Ventimiglia https://postgres.fm/people/david-ventimigliapg_flight_recorder https://github.com/dventimisupabase/pg_flight_recorderSupabase https://supabase.compg_wait_sampling https://github.com/postgrespro/pg_wait_samplingpg_ash https://github.com/NikolayS/pg_ashpg_cron https://github.com/citusdata/pg_cronpg_tle https://github.com/aws/pg_tle~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• PgQue 08.05.2026 47min

  Nik and Michael discuss Nik's new project PgQue, a descendent of Skype's PgQ, for running queue-like workloads in Postgres. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Our first episode on Queues in Postgres https://postgres.fm/episodes/queues-in-postgresPgQue https://github.com/NikolayS/pgqueHN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47817349PgQ https://github.com/pgq/pgqpgmq https://github.com/pgmq/pgmqRiver https://riverqueue.comKeeping a Postgres queue healthy (blog post by Simeon Griggs / PlanetScale) https://planetscale.com/blog/keeping-a-postgres-queue-healthyPostgres Job Queues & Failure By MVCC (blog post by Brandur) https://brandur.org/postgres-queuesMy queries to monitor autovacuum (blog post by Laurenz Albe) https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/monitor-autovacuum-my-queries/SELECT FOR UPDATE considered harmful (blog post by Laurenz Albe) https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/select-for-update-considered-harmful-postgresql/Christophe Pettus blog post https://thebuild.com/blog/2026/05/03/pgque-two-snapshots-and-a-diffOur episode on pg_ash https://postgres.fm/episodes/pg_ashRediscovering PgQ (Alexander Kukushkin slides) https://speakerdeck.com/cyberdemn/rediscovering-pgqTick frequency tuning https://github.com/NikolayS/PgQue/blob/main/docs/tick-frequency.md~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• pg_wait_tracer 24.04.2026 44min

  Nik and Michael are joined by Dmitry Fomin to discuss his new tool pg_wait_tracer, as well as changes that could be made to core to allow wait event tracing with lower overhead, and on managed services. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Dmitry Fomin https://postgres.fm/people/dmitry-fominpg_wait_tracer https://github.com/DmitryNFomin/pg_wait_tracerpg_wait_sampling https://github.com/postgrespro/pg_wait_samplingpg_10046 https://github.com/DmitryNFomin/pg_10046Jeremy Schneider reply on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7414966981847748608RDS for PostgreSQL wait event docs https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/PostgreSQL.Tuning.concepts.summary.htmlCustom wait events for extensions (added in PostgreSQL 17) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/xfunc-c.html#XFUNC-ADDIN-WAIT-EVENTSHacking Postgres with Dmitry, Kirk, and Nik (Part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gtuc2lnnsEHacking Postgres with Dmitry, Kirk, and Nik (Part 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kqpjnpl5GcTanel Poder https://tanelpoder.com/about/USDT static tracepoints for wait event tracing (proof of concept by Nik) https://github.com/NikolayS/postgres/pull/18Add wait_event_timing: Oracle-style wait event instrumentation (patch by Dmitry) https://github.com/DmitryNFomin/postgres/pull/1PgQue benchmarks https://github.com/NikolayS/pgque/blob/main/docs/benchmarks.mdThe Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis Techniques for Experimental Design, Measurement, Simulation and Modeling (by Raj K. Jain) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259310412_The_Art_of_Computer_Systems_Performance_Analysis_Techniques_For_Experimental_Design_Measurement_Simulation_and_Modeling_NY_WileyPerformance modeling and design of computer systems queueing theory in action (by Prof. Mor Harchol-Balter) https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/PerformanceModeling/book.htmlOracle Performance Firefighting (by Craig_Shallahamer) https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780984102303/Oracle-Performance-Firefighting-Craig-Shallahamer-0984102302/plpProcess Mining: Data Science in Action (by Wil van der Aalst) https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-49851-4~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• Schema design checklist 17.04.2026 45min

  Nik and Michael discuss a list of things to check when designing new schema in Postgres. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Use BIGINT in Postgres (blog post by Ryan Lambert) https://blog.rustprooflabs.com/2021/06/postgres-bigint-by-defaultPostgres 18 and UUIDv7 (blog post by Gwen Shapira) https://www.thenile.dev/blog/uuidv7How to use UUID (how-to guide by Nik) https://postgres.ai/docs/postgres-howtos/schema-design/data-types/how-to-use-uuidOur episode on constraints https://postgres.fm/episodes/constraintsOur episode on NULLs https://postgres.fm/episodes/nulls-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-and-the-unknownMultiXact member space exhaustion episode (with Metronome) https://postgres.fm/episodes/multixact-member-space-exhaustionOur Column Tetris episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/column-tetrisSaving Space Basically for Free (blog post by James Coleman from Braintree) https://medium.com/paypal-tech/postgresql-at-scale-saving-space-basically-for-free-d94483d9ed9aOver-indexing episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/over-indexingUnder-indexing episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/under-indexingGadget's use of Postgres https://postgres.fm/episodes/gadgets-use-of-postgresPartitioning episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/partitioningRLS vs performance episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/rls-vs-performance~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• What’s Missing in Postgres? 03.04.2026 43min

  Nik and Michael are joined by Bruce Momjian to discuss his new talk "What’s Missing in Postgres?" Here are some links to things they mentioned: Bruce Momjian https://postgres.fm/people/bruce-momjianEDB https://www.enterprisedb.comWhat’s Missing in Postgres? (Bruce’s slides) https://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/missing.pdfThe Wonderful World of WAL (Bruce’s slides) https://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/wal.pdfGetting started with benchmarking (our episode with Melanie Plageman) https://postgres.fm/episodes/getting-started-with-benchmarkingMyths and Truths about Synchronous Replication in Postgres (talk by Alexander Kukushkin) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFn9qRGzTMcThe Future of Postgres Sharding (Bruce’s slides) https://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/sharding.pdfMultiXact member space exhaustion https://postgres.fm/episodes/multixact-member-space-exhaustion~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• Long-running transactions 27.03.2026 48min

  Nik and Michael discuss long-running transactions, including when they're harmless, when they cause issues, and how to mitigate those issues. Here are some links to things they mentioned: transaction_timeout https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-client.html#GUC-TRANSACTION-TIMEOUTOur episode on transaction_timeout https://postgres.fm/episodes/transaction_timeoutOur episode on slow queries (which was also our first ever episode!) https://postgres.fm/episodes/slow-queries-and-slow-transactionsOur episode on locks https://postgres.fm/episodes/lockslock_timeout https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-client.html#GUC-LOCK-TIMEOUTTransaction Isolation levels https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/transaction-iso.htmlpg_current_xact_id_if_assigned() https://pgpedia.info/p/pg_current_xact_id_if_assigned.htmlMonitor xmin horizon to prevent XID/MultiXID wraparound and high bloat (how-to guide by Nik) https://postgres.ai/docs/postgres-howtos/performance-optimization/monitoring/how-to-monitor-xmin-horizonidle_replication_slot_timeout https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-replication.html#GUC-IDLE-REPLICATION-SLOT-TIMEOUTPREPARE TRANSACTION https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-prepare-transaction.htmllog_autovacuum_min_duration https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/runtime-config-logging.html#GUC-LOG-AUTOVACUUM-MIN-DURATIONPostgreSQL Subtransactions Considered Harmful (blog post by Nikolay) https://postgres.ai/blog/20210831-postgresql-subtransactions-considered-harmfulstatement_timeout https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-client.html#GUC-STATEMENT-TIMEOUTidle_in_transaction_session_timeout https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-client.html#GUC-IDLE-IN-TRANSACTION-SESSION-TIMEOUTlock_timeout https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-client.html#GUC-LOCK-TIMEOUT~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• PostGIS 13.03.2026 53min

  Nik and Michael are joined by Regina Obe and Paul Ramsey to discuss PostGIS. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Regina Obe https://postgres.fm/people/regina-obePaul Ramsey https://postgres.fm/people/paul-ramseyPostGIS https://postgis.netMobilityDB https://github.com/MobilityDB/MobilityDBpgRouting https://github.com/pgRouting/pgroutingGoogle BigQuery GIS public alpha blog post https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/data-analytics/whats-happening-bigquery-integrated-machine-learning-maps-and-morePostGIS Day 2025 talk recordings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuNO_cW2g-0&list=PLavJpcg8cl1EkQWoCbczsOjFTe-SHg_8mpg_lake https://github.com/Snowflake-Labs/pg_lakeGeoParquet https://geoparquet.orgST_DWithin https://postgis.net/docs/ST_DWithin.htmlPostgres JSONB Columns and TOAST: A Performance Guide https://www.snowflake.com/en/engineering-blog/postgres-jsonb-columns-and-toastFOSS4G https://foss4g.orgOpenStreetMap https://www.openstreetmap.orgPgDay Boston https://2026.pgdayboston.orgSKILL.md file https://github.com/postgis/postgis/blob/68dde711039986b47eb62feda45bb24b13b0ea37/doc/SKILL.mdProduction query plans without production data (blog post by Radim Marek) https://boringsql.com/posts/portable-statsPostgreSQL: Up and Running, 4th Edition (by Regina Obe, Leo Hsu) https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/postgresql-up-and/9798341660885~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• Plan flips 06.03.2026 42min

  Nik and Michael discuss query plan flips in Postgres — what they are, some causes, mitigations, longer term solutions, and the recent outage at Clerk. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Recent postmortem from Clerk https://clerk.com/blog/2026-02-19-system-outage-postmortemThe real cost of random I/O (blog post by Tomas Vondra) https://vondra.me/posts/the-real-cost-of-random-ioautovacuum_analyze_scale_factor https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-vacuum.html#GUC-AUTOVACUUM-ANALYZE-SCALE-FACTORdefault_statistics_target https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-query.html#GUC-DEFAULT-STATISTICS-TARGETpg_hint_plan https://github.com/ossc-db/pg_hint_planAurora PostgreSQL query plan management https://docs.aws.amazon.comAmazonRDS/latest/AuroraUserGuide/AuroraPostgreSQL.Optimize.Start.htmlpg_stat_plans https://github.com/pganalyze/pg_stat_planspg_plan_alternatives https://jnidzwetzki.github.io/2026/03/04/pg-plan-alternatives.htmlWaiting for Postgres 19: Better Planner Hints with Path Generation Strategies https://pganalyze.com/blog/5mins-postgres-19-better-planner-hints~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• pg_ash 20.02.2026 32min

  Nik and Michael discuss pg_ash — a new tool (not extension!) from Nik that samples and stores wait events from pg_stat_activity. Here are some links to things they mentioned: pg_ash https://github.com/NikolayS/pg_ashpg_wait_sampling https://github.com/postgrespro/pg_wait_samplingAmazon RDS performance insights https://aws.amazon.com/rds/performance-insightsOur episode on wait events https://postgres.fm/episodes/wait-eventspg-flight-recorder https://github.com/dventimisupabase/pg-flight-recorderpg_profile https://github.com/zubkov-andrei/pg_profilepg_cron https://github.com/citusdata/pg_cron~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• Comments and metadata 13.02.2026 36min

  Nik and Michael discuss query level comments, object level comments, and another way of adding object level metadata. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Object comments https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-comment.htmlQuery comment syntax (from an old version of the docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.0/syntax519.htmSQL Comments, Please! (Post by Markus Winand) https://modern-sql.com/caniuse/comments“While C-style block comments are passed to the server for processing and removal, SQL-standard comments are removed by psql.” https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/app-psql.htmlmarginalia https://github.com/basecamp/marginaliatrack_activity_query_size https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-statistics.html#GUC-TRACK-ACTIVITY-QUERY-SIZECustom Properties for Database Objects Using SECURITY LABELS (post by Andrei Lepikhov) https://www.pgedge.com/blog/custom-properties-for-postgresql-database-objects-without-core-patches~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• PgDog update 23.01.2026 44min

  Nik and Michael are joined by Lev Kokotov for an update on all things PgDog. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Lev Kokotov https://postgres.fm/people/lev-kokotovPgDog https://github.com/pgdogdev/pgdogOur first PgDog episode (March 2025) https://postgres.fm/episodes/pgdogSharding pgvector (blog post by Lev) https://pgdog.dev/blog/sharding-pgvectorPrepared statements and partitioned table lock explosion (series by Nik) https://postgres.ai/blog/20251028-postgres-marathon-2-009~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• RegreSQL 16.01.2026 57min

  Nik and Michael are joined by Radim Marek from boringSQL to talk about RegreSQL, a regression testing tool for SQL queries they forked and improved recently. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Radim Marek https://postgres.fm/people/radim-marekboringSQL https://boringsql.comRegreSQL: Regression Testing for PostgreSQL Queries (blog post by Radim) https://boringsql.com/posts/regresql-testing-queriesDiscussion on Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45924619 Radim’s fork of RegreSQL on GitHub https://github.com/boringSQL/regresql Original RegreSQL on GitHub (by Dimitri Fontaine) https://github.com/dimitri/regresql The Art of PostgreSQL (book) https://theartofpostgresql.comHow to make the non-production Postgres planner behave like in production (how-to post by Nik) https://postgres.ai/docs/postgres-howtos/performance-optimization/query-tuning/how-to-imitate-production-planner Just because you’re getting an index scan, doesn't mean you can’t do better! (Blog post by Michael) https://www.pgmustard.com/blog/index-scan-doesnt-mean-its-fastboringSQL Labs https://labs.boringsql.com~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• Postgres year in review 2025 02.01.2026 47min

  Nik and Michael discuss the events and trends they thought were most important in the Postgres ecosystem in 2025. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Postgres 18 release notes https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/release-18.htmlOur episode on Postgres 18 https://postgres.fm/episodes/postgres-18LWLock:LockManager benchmarks for Postgres 18 (blog post by Nik) https://postgres.ai/blog/20251009-postgres-marathon-2-005PostgreSQL bug tied to zero-day attack on US Treasury https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/14/postgresql_bug_treasuryPgDog episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/pgdogMultigres episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/multigresNeki announcement https://planetscale.com/blog/announcing-nekiOur 100TB episode from 2024 https://postgres.fm/episodes/to-100tb-and-beyondPlanetScale for Postgres https://planetscale.com/blog/planetscale-for-postgresOracle's MySQL job cuts https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/11/oracle_slammed_for_mysql_jobAmazon Aurora DSQL is now generally available https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2025/05/amazon-aurora-dsql-generally-availableAnnouncing Azure HorizonDB https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/adforpostgresql/announcing-azure-horizondb/4469710Lessons from Replit and Tiger Data on Storage for Agentic Experimentation https://www.tigerdata.com/blog/lessons-replit-tiger-data-storage-agentic-experimentationInstant database clones with PostgreSQL 18 https://boringsql.com/posts/instant-database-clonesturbopuffer episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/turbopufferCrunchy joins Snowflake https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/crunchy-data-joins-snowflakeNeon joins Databricks https://neon.com/blog/neon-and-databricks~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• Archiving 19.12.2025 31min

  Nik and Michael discuss a listener question about archiving a database. Here are some links to things they mentioned: Listener request to talk about archiving https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFRK8PiIvTg&lc=UgyiFrO37gEgUaVhRgN4AaABAg Our episode on “Is pg_dump a backup tool?” https://postgres.fm/episodes/is-pg_dump-a-backup-tool ~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• max_connections vs migrations 05.12.2025 44min

  Nik and Michael discuss max_connections, especially in the context of increasing it to solve problems like migrations intermittently failing(!) Here are some links to things they mentioned: max_connections https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-connection.html#GUC-MAX-CONNECTIONSTweet about deployments vs connections issue https://x.com/brankopetric00/status/1991394329886077090Nik tweet in response https://x.com/samokhvalov/status/1991465573684027443Analyzing the Limits of Connection Scalability in Postgres (blog post by Andres Freund) https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2020/10/08/analyzing-connection-scalability/Exponential Backoff And Jitter (blog post by Marc Brooker) https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/exponential-backoff-and-jitter/~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• What's new in EXPLAIN 21.11.2025 45min

  Nik and Michael discuss the various changes to EXPLAIN that arrived in Postgres 18. Here are some links to things they mentioned: EXPLAIN (official docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-explain.htmlUsing EXPLAIN (official docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/using-explain.html EXPLAIN glossary (pgMustard site) https://www.pgmustard.com/docs/explainPostgres 18 release notes https://www.postgresql.org/docs/release/18.0/Enable BUFFERS with EXPLAIN ANALYZE by default (commit) https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit;h=c2a4078ebOur (first) BUFFERS by default episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/buffers-by-default Show index search count in EXPLAIN ANALYZE (commit) https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commitdiff;h=0fbceae841cb5a31b13d3f284ac8fdd19822ecebOur episode on Skip scan with Peter Geoghegan https://postgres.fm/episodes/skip-scanWhat do the new Index Searches lines in EXPLAIN mean? https://www.pgmustard.com/blog/what-do-index-searches-in-explain-meanpg_stat_plans presentation by Lukas Fittl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26coQV3f-wkImprove EXPLAIN's display of window functions (commit) https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit;h=8b1b34254Show Parallel Bitmap Heap Scan worker stats in EXPLAIN ANALYZE (commit) https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit;h=5a1e6df3bAdd information about WAL buffers being full (commit) https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit;h=320545bfc ~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• Tens of TB per hour 14.11.2025 38min

  Nik talks Michael through a recent benchmark he worked with Maxim Boguk on, to see how quickly they could provision a replica. Here are some links to things they mentioned:Ultra-fast replica creation with pgBackRest (blog post by Maxim Boguk and Nik) https://postgres.ai/blog/20251105-postgres-marathon-2-012-ultra-fast-replica-creation-pgbackrestCopying a database episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/copying-a-databaseAdd snapshot backup support for PostgreSQL in wal-g (draft PR by Andrey Borodin) https://github.com/wal-g/wal-g/pull/2101Multi-threaded pg_basebackup discussion 1: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/CAEHH7R4%3D_GN%2BLSsj0YZOXZ13yc%3DGk9umJOLNopjS%3DimK0c1mWA%40mail.gmail.comMulti-threaded pg_basebackup discussion 2: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/io_method https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/runtime-config-resource.html#GUC-IO-METHOD pgBackRest https://github.com/pgbackrest/pgbackrestAdd sequence synchronization for logical replication (commit) https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit;h=5509055d6956745532e65ab218e15b99d87d66ce Allow process priority to be set (pgBackRest feature added by David Steele) https://github.com/pgbackrest/pgbackrest/pull/2693 Hard limit on process-max (pgBackRest issue from 2019) https://github.com/pgbackrest/pgbackrest/issues/696 ~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork
• Gapless sequences 31.10.2025 39min

  Nik and Michael discuss the concept of gapless sequences — when you might want one, why sequences in Postgres can have gaps, and an idea or two if you do want them.And one quick clarification: changing the CACHE option in CREATE SEQUENCE can lead to even more gaps, the docs mention it explicitly. Here are some links to things they mentioned:CREATE SEQUENCE https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-createsequence.htmlSequence Manipulation Functions https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/functions-sequence.htmlOne, Two, Skip a Few (post by Pete Hamilton from Incident io) https://incident.io/blog/one-two-skip-a-fewPostgres sequences can commit out-of-order (blog post by Anthony Accomazzo / Sequin) https://blog.sequinstream.com/postgres-sequences-can-commit-out-of-orderLogical Replication of sequences (hackers thread) https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/CAA4eK1LC%2BKJiAkSrpE_NwvNdidw9F2os7GERUeSxSKv71gXysQ%40mail.gmail.comSynchronization of sequences to subscriber (patch entry in commitfest) https://commitfest.postgresql.org/patch/5111/Get or Create (episode with Haki Benita) https://postgres.fm/episodes/get-or-createGerman tank problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem~~~What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!~~~Postgres FM is produced by:Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustardNikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.aiWith credit to:Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork