PostgreSQL Best Practices

What this best practices guide is

A practical guide to PostgreSQL best practices for application developers. It covers schema design and data types, constraints, indexing with EXPLAIN, query patterns that avoid N+1 problems, migrations that do not lock production, connection pooling, transactions and isolation, backups you have actually restored, and roles with least privilege.

It has 7 chapters and 32 practices, each with why it matters, what to do and what to avoid. For backend developers who use Postgres.

Chapter by chapter

1. Schema design and data types (5 practices)

The choices that are expensive to change once data is in the table: column types, primary keys and when to reach for JSON.

2. Constraints that protect your data (4 practices)

Let the database reject bad data so every app, script and admin console that writes to it follows the same rules.

3. Indexing and EXPLAIN (4 practices)

How to choose indexes from real queries and how to read a query plan to see whether they are used.

4. Writing queries that scale (5 practices)

Query patterns from application code that keep load on the database predictable as data and traffic grow.

5. Migrations without downtime (5 practices)

How to change a busy production schema without long locks, using the tools PostgreSQL gives you for exactly this.

6. Connections and transactions (4 practices)

How to keep connection counts sane and transactions short and correct, especially from serverless and multi-instance apps.

7. Backups, upgrades and security (5 practices)

Running Postgres safely: backups you can restore, supported versions, and roles that limit what a leaked password can do.

How it works on Sefism

The guide reads like a short course: a syllabus, then one chapter per page in a focused reader, with a quiz at the end of each chapter for members. The opening chapters are open to everyone. Adding it to your account uses credits, opens every chapter and keeps your progress.

Every claim is checked against the sources listed on the page (8 cited).