151
Is Postgres read heavy or write heavy?
A query to find out if Postgres is read heavy or write heavy and tips for optimizing Postgres for both read and write workloads.
Topics /
Databases & Data
The most popular blog posts about databases & data on Hacker News. 299 posts.
152
People Keep Inventing Prolly Trees
A novel data structure has been invented four times now, with three different names. We think that's a good sign.
153
The secret ingredients of word2vec (2016)
Word2vec is a pervasive tool for learning word embeddings. Its success, however, is mostly due to particular architecture choices. Transferring these choices to traditional distributional methods makes them competitive with popular word embedding methods.
154
Building AI agents to query your databases
In the world of AI agents, the ability to understand and analyze structured data is a game-changer. While large language models excel at understanding natural...
155
Stop using zip codes for geospatial analysis (2019)
Uncover deeper insights beyond ZIP codes with geospatial analysis. Explore the limitations of ZIP codes and discover alternatives for spatial understanding.
156
Benchmarking Postgres 17 vs. 18
Postgres 18 brings a significant improvement to read performance via async I/O and I/O worker threads. Here we compare its performance to Postgres 17.
157
Optimistic Locking in B-Trees
CedarDB is a database system that delivers unmatched performance for transactions and analytics, from small writes to handling billions of rows. Built on cutting-edge research to power today’s tools and tomorrow’s challenges.
158
Polars Cloud and Distributed Polars now available
We launch Polars Cloud; the distributed Cloud Architecture to run Polars anywhere
159
Oldest recorded transaction
The oldest recorded transaction was in 3100 BC
160
Visualizing data is an art
The case for less rigor and more nuance.
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Build real-time knowledge graph for documents with LLM
Build a Neo4j knowledge graph from Markdown documents with an LLM. CocoIndex updates the extracted relationships as documents change.
163
Which colours dominate movie posters and why?
I analysed 58,687 movie posters from the past century to see which colours dominate, how their use has shifted over time and what each hue signals to audiences.
164
Building a Durable Execution Engine with SQLite
Lately, there has been a lot of excitement around Durable Execution (DE) engines. The basic idea of DE is to take (potentially long-running) multi-step workflows, such as processing a purchase order …
165
Preview: Amazon S3 Tables and Lakehouse in DuckDB
We are happy to announce a new preview feature that adds support for Apache Iceberg REST Catalogs, enabling DuckDB users to connect to Amazon S3 Tables and Amazon SageMaker Lakehouse with ease.
166
Analyzing database trends through 1.8M Hacker News headlines
We analyzed 1.8 million Hacker News headlines spanning February 2007 to June 2025 to examine database engine popularity trends. Using camelAI connected to a ClickHouse database, we uncovered which databases the HN...
167
Listen to Database Changes Through the Postgres WAL
An in-depth guide to listening to Postgres database changes through the WAL. Covers logical replication, publications, replication slots, and an Elixir implementation.
168
Backblaze Drive Stats for Q3 2025
Read the Q3 2025 Drive Stats report to see the latest annualized failure rates, and an analysis of how we define failure in the first place.
169
Materialized views are obviously useful
As programmers we spend a lot of time shuttling data back and forth between different systems and transforming it from one format to another. Sometimes it gets pretty miserable!
170
Ultra efficient vector extension for SQLite
Making vector search fast, memory-efficient, and natural in SQLite.
171
Poor man's bitemporal data system in SQLite and Clojure
On trying to mash up SQLite with ideas stolen from Accountants, Clojure, Datomic, XTDB, Rama, and Local-first-ers, to satisfy Henderson's Tenth Law. Viz., to make a sufficiently complicated data system containing an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of a bitemporal database…
172
Faster Index I/O with NVMe SSDs
The Marginalia Search index has been partially rewritten to perform much better, using new data structures designed to make better use of modern hardware. This post will cover the new design, and will also touch upon some of the unexpected and unintuitive performance characteristics of NVMe SSDs when it comes to read…
173
A SQL Heuristic: ORs Are Expensive
But this is slow! With 1,000,000 applications and 1000 users uniformly distributed on both columns, it takes over 100ms. 1
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Absurd Workflows: Durable Execution with Just Postgres
Durable execution with just postgres.
176
A data analysis of speeches at the Oscars
I analysed almost 2,000 Oscar speeches to discover if the claim that Harvey Weinstein was thanked more often than God is true. Plus, we'll find out which Hollywood icon is bigger than both of them.
177
Anatomy of a SQL Engine
Blog for DoltHub, a website hosting databases made with Dolt, an open-source version-controlled SQL database with Git-like semantics.
178
Charting Form Ds to roughly see the state of venture capital “fund” raising
Above is a graph that displays the amount of Form Ds filed, where the entity (read: company/firm) name contains the phrases "fund I", "fund II", "fund III", and "fund IV". The x-axis is not the prettiest, but it is broken down by quarter. You can see that the line for "fund I" sees by far the greatest peak around…
179
I analyzed the lineups at the most popular nightclubs
A few years back I did a bit of dance music related data visualization over at Lazily Evaluated. My favourite was an analysis of clubs and their lineups using Resident Advisor / RA data, I called it Clubster Analysis. I always wanted to dig into the technical aspects of gathering the data, analyzing it and building…
180
EdgeDB is now Gel and Postgres is the future
EdgeDB is now Gel. New identity, renewed focus on delivering the best PostgreSQL data platform in the world.