Postgres FM
by Nikolay Samokhvalov and Michael Christofides
Latest episode
Extensions on demand
Extensions on demand
About this podcast
A weekly podcast about all things PostgreSQL
Episodes
The newest 50 of 195 episodes
- Extensions on demand · 1 h 8 min · Episode 195Nik and Kirk are joined by Álvaro Hernández to discuss how Postgres in containers gets its extensions: a fat image with all of them, extensions downloaded at run time, or…
- UUIDv4 vs UUIDv7 · 48 min · Episode 194Nik is joined by Kirk Wolak to discuss what a random UUIDv4 primary key really costs compared with a time-ordered UUIDv7 or an int8 key on Postgres 18 — index size, WAL and…
- Dump/restore done. Now what? · 51 min · Episode 193Nik is joined by Kirk Wolak, Software Architect at KiraSoft, to discuss what a database still needs after pg_restore finishes and before it takes production traffic — what…
- Citus + StackGres · 59 min · Episode 192Nik and Michael are joined by Álvaro Hernández to discuss sharding Postgres with Citus and StackGres, especially the new query router support that has been added very recently…
- GSoC B-Tree Merge · 49 min · Episode 191Nik and Michael are joined by Salma El-Sayed and Kirk Wolak to discuss their in-progress and very ambitious Google Summer of Code project around adding Btree Merge support to…
- ClickHouse Managed Postgres · 43 min · Episode 190Nik and Michael are joined by Sai Srirampur to discuss ClickHouse's new managed Postgres service. Here are some links to things they mentioned: • Sai Srirampur…
- hot_standby_feedback · 39 min · Episode 189Nik and Michael discuss hot_standby_feedback — what it controls, whether and when read replicas should be changed to on, and other settings you can change to help too. Here are…
- Estimating work_mem · 50 min · Episode 188Nik and Michael are joined by Shaun Thomas to discuss estimating work_mem, memory management in general, and writing an extension to help. Here are some links to things they…
- pgrust · 35 min · Episode 187Nik and Michael are joined by Michael Malis, co-creator of pgrust, to discuss their Postgres rewrite, including reliability problems, compatibility testing, faster analytics, and…
- MVCC · 44 min · Episode 186Nik and Michael are joined by Radim Marek to discuss MVCC, including his recent article on how Postgres chose to implement it compared to other systems. Here are some links to…
- Xata · 46 min · Episode 185Nik and Michael are joined by Tudor Golubenco, CTO of Xata, to discuss their architecture, progress, and open source tooling. Here are some links to things they mentioned: •…
- DBOS · 39 min · Episode 184Nik and Michael are joined by Qian Li and Peter Kraft to talk about DBOS, an open source platform for durable workflows built on Postgres. Here are some links to things they…
- pg_stat_log · 44 min · Episode 183Nik and Michael are joined by Fabrízio Mello to discuss his new extension pg_stat_log. Here are some links to things they mentioned: • Fabrízio Mello…
- pgBackRest · 1 h 13 min · Episode 182Nik 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-steele •…
- autovacuum · 46 min · Episode 181Nik 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…
- pg_flight_recorder · 43 min · Episode 180Nik 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…
- PgQue · 47 min · Episode 179Nik 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…
- pg_wait_tracer · 44 min · Episode 178Nik 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…
- Schema design checklist · 45 min · Episode 177Nik 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…
- What’s Missing in Postgres? · 44 min · Episode 176Nik 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…
- Long-running transactions · 48 min · Episode 175Nik 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…
- PostGIS · 53 min · Episode 174Nik 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-obe •…
- Plan flips · 43 min · Episode 173Nik 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…
- pg_ash · 32 min · Episode 172Nik 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: •…
- Comments and metadata · 36 min · Episode 171Nik 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…
- PgDog update · 44 min · Episode 170Nik 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-kokotov…
- RegreSQL · 58 min · Episode 169Nik 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…
- Postgres year in review 2025 · 47 min · Episode 168Nik 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…
- Archiving · 31 min · Episode 167Nik and Michael discuss a listener question about archiving a database. Here are some links to things they mentioned: • Listener request to talk about archiving…
- max_connections vs migrations · 45 min · Episode 166Nik 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…
- What's new in EXPLAIN · 45 min · Episode 165Nik and Michael discuss the various changes to EXPLAIN that arrived in Postgres 18. Here are some links to things they mentioned: • EXPLAIN (official docs)…
- Tens of TB per hour · 39 min · Episode 164Nik 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: •…
- Gapless sequences · 40 min · Episode 163Nik 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…
- LWLocks · 38 min · Episode 162Nik and Michael discuss lightweight locks in Postgres — how they differ to (heavier) locks, some occasions they can be troublesome, and some resources for working out what to do…
- User management · 39 min · Episode 161Nik and Michael discuss user management in Postgres — how roles work, making administration easier, setting passwords, and avoiding them being logged. Here are some links to…
- Postgres 18 · 56 min · Episode 160Nik and Michael discuss the newly released Postgres 18 — the bigger things it includes, some of their personal highlights, and some thoughts towards the future. Here are some…
- Gadget's use of Postgres · 53 min · Episode 159Nik and Michael are joined by Harry Brundage from Gadget to talk about their recent zero-downtime major version upgrade, how they use Postgres more generally, their dream…
- turbopuffer · 50 min · Episode 158Nik and Michael are joined by Simon Eskildsen from turbopuffer — among other things, they discuss ANN index types, tradeoffs that can make sense for search workloads, and when it…
- When not to use Postgres · 46 min · Episode 157Nik and Michael discuss when not to use Postgres — specifically use cases where it still makes sense to store data in another system. Here are some links to things they…
- Disks · 46 min · Episode 156Nik and Michael discuss disks in relation to Postgres — why they matter, how saturation can happen, some modern nuances, and how to prepare to avoid issues. Here are some links…
- Multi-column indexes · 41 min · Episode 155Nik and Michael discuss multi-column indexes in Postgres — what they are, how to think about them, and some guidance around using them effectively. Here are some links to things…
- Self-driving Postgres · 59 min · Episode 154Nikolay and Michael discuss self-driving Postgres — what it could mean, using self-driving cars as a reference, and ideas for things to build and optimize for in this area. Here…
- caSe-inSENsiTive · 26 min · Episode 153Nikolay and Michael discuss case-insensitive data — when we want to treat columns as case-insensitive, and the pros and cons of using citext, functions like lower(), or a custom…
- Monitoring from Postgres AI · 45 min · Episode 152Nikolay talks to Michael about Postgres AI's new monitoring tool — what it is, how its different to other tools, and some of the thinking behind it. Here are some links to…
- MultiXact member space exhaustion · 56 min · Episode 151Nikolay and Michael are joined by Andrew Johnson and Nate Brennand from Metronome to discuss MultiXact member space exhaustion — what it is, how they managed to hit it, and some…
- Multigres · 1 h 19 min · Episode 150Nikolay and Michael are joined by Sugu Sougoumarane to discuss Multigres — a project he's joined Supabase to lead, building an adaptation of Vitess for Postgres! Here are some…
- Multi-tenant options · 50 min · Episode 149Nikolay and Michael are joined by Gwen Shapira to discuss multi-tenant architectures — the high level options, the pros and cons of each, and how they're trying to help with…
- Mean vs p99 · 39 min · Episode 148Nikolay and Michael discuss looking at queries by mean time — when it makes sense, why ordering by a percentile (like p99) might be better, and the merits of approximating…
- What to log · 49 min · Episode 147Nikolay and Michael discuss logging in Postgres — mostly what to log, and why changing quite a few settings can pay off big time in the long term. Here are some links to things…
- How to move off RDS · 48 min · Episode 146Nikolay and Michael discuss moving off managed services — when and why you might want to, and some tips on how for very large databases. Here are some links to things they…
