--- title: "The one with Postgres 16" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 522 published_at: "2023-09-20" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/522" --- Plus a new vector extension option, column oriented Postgres, and playing with active active replication. | #​522 — September 20, 2023 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/522) Together with [![Teleport logo\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,w_280,h_60/e_make_transparent/co_white,e_outline:5/vr8quyt0q3vtxkpueewu.png)](https://goteleport.com/database-access/?utm_campaign=0920Cooperpress&utm_medium=partner&utm_source=postgres) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/ndome6zuagflo2fejljb.jpg)](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-16-released-2715/) [Postgres 16 Released](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-16-released-2715/) — The newest major version of Postgres dropped the day after we sent _Postgres Weekly_ last week, but the upside is we can link to many extensions that have added PG16 support over the past week in _Code & Tools_ below 😆 Nonetheless, here's some of what's new: - CPU acceleration with SIMD support on both x86 & ARM - The query planner can now parallelize `FULL` and `RIGHT` joins. - Aggregate function performance improvements. - Big performance improvements to bulk data loading with `COPY` - Allowing logical replication from standby servers. - Expanded SQL/JSON syntax, e.g. `JSON_ARRAY()` & `JSON_ARRAYAGG()` - [pg_stat_io](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/16/monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-PG-STAT-IO-VIEW) for granular I/O metrics. For the full list of what's new, check out [the release notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/16/release-16.html), or... PostgreSQL Global Development Group [What Changes in Postgres 16, How We Got Here, and What to Expect in Postgres 17+](https://www.postgresql.fastware.com/blog/discussing-postgresql-what-changes-in-version-16) — Amit Kapila lists the new features introduced in Postgres 16 in an easier to skim form than the official release post (above) including code examples of the new SQL/JSON functions in play. Amit Kapila [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/61c12128.png)](https://goteleport.com/database-access/?utm_campaign=0920Cooperpress&utm_medium=partner&utm_source=postgres) [Secure, Compliant, and Effortless Database Access for Any DB](https://goteleport.com/database-access/?utm_campaign=0920Cooperpress&utm_medium=partner&utm_source=postgres) — Break access silos and reduce overhead by consolidating database access permissions in one place. Continuously maintain compliance and pass audits with minimal effort for SOC 2, FedRAMP, HIPAA, ISO 27001, PCI, and more. Teleport | goteleport․com sponsor [Hydra 1.0: Open Source, Column-Oriented Postgres](https://www.hydra.so/blog-posts/hydra-1-generally-available) — An open-source extension that adds columnar tables to Postgres for efficient analytical reporting without needing to change database. Hydra’s Owen Ou recorded a [▶️ five minute screencast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yzxgb0Oyrw) to show it off. Simon Wijckmans _IN BRIEF:_ - [Postgres 16 is already available](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2023/09/postgresql-16-rds-database-preview-environment/) in Amazon RDS's _Database Preview Environment_ if you want to evaluate it on AWS. - 🇬🇧 The first [PGDay UK 2023](https://2023.pgday.uk/) took place in London last week and organizer Dave Page shares [an update on how it was a resounding success.](https://pgday.uk/events/pgdayuk2023/news/pgday-uk-2023-pgday-uk-wrap-up-7/) Roll on PgDay UK 2024! - ✅ The folks at database tools company Redgate Software are [running a survey on the state of the database landscape](https://www.red-gate.com/blog/how-database-landscape-changing-survey), if you want to take part. - Take care when using variables defined within `FOR` loops in PL/pgSQL [as their scope is restrained.](https://fluca1978.github.io/2023/09/19/PostgreSQLFORAutodeclaredVariables.html) - Bruce Momjian explains [the criteria he uses](https://momjian.us/main/blogs/pgblog/2023.html#September_18_2023) to choose which Postgres conferences to attend. - A discussion about [why giving talks at Postgres conferences matters.](https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2023/09/19/why-giving-talks-at-postgres-conferences-matter-highlights-from-a-podcast/) [Active Active in Postgres 16](https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/active-active-postgres-16) — A practical walkthrough putting Postgres 16’s logical replication improvements through their paces. Brian Pace [Determining the Optimal Postgres Partition Size](https://www.timescale.com/blog/determining-the-optimal-postgres-partition-size/) Soto and Blackwood-Sewell (Timescale) Code and Tools [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/o1nvstus5pazdr03fx50.jpg)](https://docs.lantern.dev/blog/2023/09/13/hello-world) [Lantern: A Postgres Vector Extension for AI Use Cases](https://docs.lantern.dev/blog/2023/09/13/hello-world) — [pgvector](https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector) may be all the rage, but Lantern is here with an alternative option (which can interoperate with pgvector, luckily). It hopes to outperform pgvector and similar extensions and has support for parallel index creation, keeping index creation outside of a live database. It leans upon [usearch](https://github.com/unum-cloud/usearch) under the hood. Jeung Park and Narek Galstyan [The Flexibility and Power to Run PostgreSQL on Any Cloud. Start with $300 in Cloud Credits](https://www.enterprisedb.com/accounts/register/biganimal?utm_source=postgresweekly&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=GL-DS--BigAnimal-DSS) EDB BigAnimal sponsor [PeerDB: Simpler and Faster ETL for Postgres](https://www.peerdb.io/) — From an alumni of Microsoft and Citus Data comes a new platform dedicated to the task of moving data into and out of Postgres. There’s a [quick start guide](https://docs.peerdb.io/quickstart), but the idea is to seamlessly integrate multiple data-stores inclding Postgres, Snowflake and BigQuery and offer real-time syncing, customized ETL, and a way to do federated queries across said stores. PeerDB [pgtt 3.0: Manage and Use Oracle-Style Global Temporary Tables](https://github.com/darold/pgtt) — For those situations where you want to reproduce Oracle’s behavior rather than rewrite your code to use standard Postgres temporary tables. v3 supports Postgres 12+. Gilles Darold [pg_hint_plan 1.6: Manually Force Decisions in Execution Plans](https://github.com/ossc-db/pg_hint_plan) — Bug fixes, as usual, but Postgres 16 support is the headline here. NTT OSS Center DBMS Development and Support Team [Pigsty 4.0: A 'Batteries Included' Postgres Distribution](https://github.com/Vonng/pigsty/releases/tag/v2.4.0) — A distribution of Postgres that bills itself as an ‘RDS PG alternative’ with a lot of things included out of the box, such as extensions, observability, self-healing HA, and a monitoring dashboard. v4.0 introduces Postgres 16 support and a variety of new bundled extensions including Apache AGE and pgsql-http. Feng Ruohang - [pgrx 0.10.1](https://github.com/pgcentralfoundation/pgrx) – Build Postgres extensions with Rust. Now with Postgres 16 support, naturally. - [pg_qualstats 2.1](https://github.com/powa-team/pg_qualstats) – Keep & analyze statistics on predicates used. - [Good Job 3.19.0](https://github.com/bensheldon/good_job) – Postgres-backed job queue for Ruby on Rails. - [pgxmock 3.0](https://github.com/pashagolub/pgxmock) – Mock driver to test database interactions in Go. - [pg_ivm 1.7](https://github.com/sraoss/pg_ivm) – Incremental View Maintenance (IVM) extension. **Got a new email?** You can [change your address here](https://postgresweekly.com/edit_subscription/*|UID|*). --- **Bored of us?** [Click here to stop getting Postgres Weekly](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*). --- **Got a link for us?** Reply and tell us. We can't include everything but we'll look at anything you send. _Thanks!_ --- Published by Cooper Press Ltd. 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