Understanding and Monitoring Index and Table Bloat in PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL 🐘 is a robust database, but its MVCC (Multi-Version Concurrency Control) design can sometimes lead to a subtle issue: table and index bloat. If left unchecked, bloat wastes storage, increases I/O, and can slow queries down. In this post, I’ll walk through: What bloat is and why it happens Different ways to measure it How to keep an eye on it without killing your database A few habits to reduce or fix it What is bloat? 🧹 Table bloat: Every update creates a new row version, and the old one becomes dead. Those dead tuples sit there until vacuum cleans them. Index bloat: Even when dead tuples are gone from the table, their index entries may stick around until an index vacuum or reindex. Why care? ...