Just Use Postgres!

All the database you need

Denis Magda

• Publisher: Manning
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Computer Science
• eBook ISBN:
  9781638357704
• Subtopic: Databases
• Index: Computer Science

You probably don’t need a collection of specialty databases. Just use Postgres instead!

Written for application developers and database pros, Just Use Postgres! shows you how to get the most out of the powerful Postgres database.

In Just Use Postgres! you’ll learn how to:

• Use Postgres as an RDBMS for transactional workloads
• Develop generative AI, geospatial, and time-series applications
• Take advantage of modern SQL including window functions and CTEs
• Perform full-text search and process JSON documents
• Use Postgres as a message queue
• Optimize performance with various index types including B-trees, GIN, GiST, HNSW, and more

Over the decades, PostgreSQL, aka Postgres, has grown into the most powerful general-purpose database and has become the de facto standard for developers worldwide. Just Use Postgres! takes a modern look at Postgres, exploring the database’s most up-to-date features for AI, time-series, full-text search, geospatial, and other application workloads.

Foreword by Josh Long. Afterword by Vlad Mihalcea.

About the technology

You know that PostgreSQL is a fast, reliable, SQL compliant RDBMS. You may not know that it’s also great for geospatial systems, time series, full-text search, JSON documents, AI vector embeddings, and many other specialty database functions. For almost any data task you can imagine, you can use Postgres.

About the book

Just Use Postgres! covers recipes for using Postgres in dozens of applications normally reserved for single-purpose databases. Written for busy application developers, each chapter explores a different use case illuminating the breadth and depth of Postgres’s capabilities. Along the way, you’ll also meet an incredible ecosystem of Postgres extensions like pgvector, PostGIS, pgmq, and TimescaleDB. You’ll be amazed at everything you can accomplish with Postgres!

What's inside

• Generative AI, geospatial, and time-series applications
• Modern SQL including window functions and CTEs
• Full-text search and JSON
• B-trees, GIN, GiST, HNSW, and more

About the reader

For application developers, software engineers, and architects who know the basics of SQL.

About the author

Denis Magda is a recognized Postgres expert and software engineer who worked on Java at Sun Microsystems and Oracle before focusing on databases and large-scale distributed systems.

Table of Contents

Part 1
1 Meeting Postgres
2 Standard RDBMS capabilities
3 Modern SQL
4 Indexes
Part 2
5 Postgres and JSON
6 Postgres for full-text search
Part 3
7 Postgres extensions
8 Postgres for generative AI
9 Postgres for time series
10 Postgres for geospatial data
11 Postgres as a message queue
Appendixes
A Five optimization tips
B When not to use Postgres

Table of contents

• Just use Postgres! All the database you need
• copyright
• contents
• dedication
• foreword
• preface
• acknowledgments
• about this book
• about the author
• about the cover illustration
• Part 1 Postgres as a relational database
• 1 Meeting Postgres
• 2 Standard RDBMS capabilities
• 3 Modern SQL
• 4 Indexes
• Part 2 Core Postgres beyond relational
• 5 Postgres and JSON
• 6 Postgres for full-text search
• Part 3 Extensions and the broader ecosystem
• 7 Postgres extensions
• 8 Postgres for generative AI
• 9 Postgres for time series
• 10 Postgres for geospatial data
• 11 Postgres as a message queue
• appendix A  Five optimization tips
• appendix B  When not to use Postgres
• afterword