Rethinking Indexes: Postgres Performance Beyond Basics

Recent discussions spotlight how database indexes—especially in PostgreSQL—are often misunderstood, leading to slow queries and unnecessary write overhead. The articles emphasize that indexes are not a universal speed boost: they trade faster reads for extra storage and slower inserts/updates, and they can be ignored when predicates, data distribution, or query structure don’t match the index. They also highlight lesser-known Postgres features and pitfalls, such as multi-column ordering, selectivity, index-only scans and visibility map effects, partial and expression indexes, and how planner statistics shape index usage. Overall, the trend is toward more intentional, workload-driven indexing rather than “index everything.”