--- title: "Microsoft's BSON document NoSQL database on Postgres" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 587 published_at: "2025-02-06" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/587" --- Plus a handy online SQL playground. | #​587 — February 6, 2025 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/587) Together with [![logo\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,w_280,h_60/e_make_transparent/co_white,e_outline:7/om9hjsmudy5lsvba59eb.png)](https://posetteconf.com/2025/cfp/) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/na8hucfslyi8dzrshv3h.jpg)](https://www.pgmustard.com/blog/index-scan-doesnt-mean-its-fast) [Just Because You’re Getting an Index Scan, Doesn't Mean You Can’t Do Better](https://www.pgmustard.com/blog/index-scan-doesnt-mean-its-fast) — If you see index scans when reviewing query plans, you might think you’re on the right path to a high performing query, but there’s more juice left for the squeezing, says Michael. Useful tips here. Michael Christofides [DocumentDB: Microsoft Brings More NoSQL to Postgres](https://github.com/microsoft/documentdb) — Not to be confused with the proprietary Amazon DocumentDB, _this_ DocumentDB is an MIT-licensed document-based NoSQL engine built on top of Postgres that Microsoft use internally for Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB. Microsoft [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_limit,w_480,h_480,q_auto/copm/6a1e4ee0.png)](https://posetteconf.com/2025/cfp/) [POSETTE 2025: Call for Proposals (CFP) Closes February 9!](https://posetteconf.com/2025/cfp/) — [POSETTE: An Event for Postgres](https://posetteconf.com/2025), a free & virtual developer event, is happening June 10-12. The CFP closes **Feb. 9 at 11:59 PM PST**. New and experienced speakers are encouraged to submit! See suggested topics, speaker resources and [submission details](https://posetteconf.com/2025/cfp/). Microsoft sponsor 💡 Relating to the above, Microsoft's Claire Giordano has separately published [a guide to talk proposal ideas](https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2025/02/04/cfp-talk-proposal-ideas-for-posette-2025/) if you're looking for inspiration. **QUICK BITS:** - FOSDEM PGDay 2025 took place last week and Stefanie Janine Stölting [shares a brief slice of how it went](https://proopensource.it/blog/fosdem-and-fosdem-pgday-2025) including a photo with a real life Slonik! 🐘 - 📊 [JSONBench](https://jsonbench.com/) is an attempt at benchmarking different databases (including Postgres) for working with JSON at scale. 🤖 [Automating Data Summarization in Postgres with Claude](https://www.timescale.com/blog/automating-data-summarization-in-postgresql-with-claude) — Timescale shows how to bring pgvector together with their [pgai](https://github.com/timescale/pgai/) tooling to have Postgres reach out to Anthropic’s Claude AI for summarization tasks without any external scripting. Timescale [`commit_delay` for Better Performance: A Postgres Benchmark](https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/commit_delay-performance-postgresql-benchmark/) — Laurenz shares benchmark results highlighting the performance wins gained by using the `commit_delay` and `commit_siblings` parameters to group WAL flushes and ultimately optimize transactional workloads. Laurenz Albe [Replacing Oracle Hints: Best Practices with `pg_hint_plan`](https://pganalyze.com/blog/migrating-from-oracle-hints-to-pg-hint-plan-on-postgresql) — Oracle Database users can use [‘hints’](https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E15586_01/server.1111/e16638/hintsref.htm) to guide the query optimizer’s decision making process, and you can reproduce the idea in Postgres with [pg_hint_plan.](https://github.com/ossc-db/pg_hint_plan) Lukas explains when you might use hints and how Oracle hints can be mapped to Postgres. Lukas Fittl 📄 [Building a Semantic Movie Search Demo with pgvector and Next.js](https://blog.6nok.org/building-a-semantic-movie-search-demo-with-pgvector-and-next.js/) Fatih Altinok 📄 [Avoiding the WAL Archives Retention Trap in pgBackRest](https://dataegret.com/2025/02/avoiding-the-wal-archives-retention-trap-in-pgbackrest/) Stefan Fercot 📄 [Indexing Materialized Views in Postgres](https://www.crunchydata.com/blog/indexing-materialized-views-in-postgres) Elizabeth Christensen 📄 [Debugging Deadlocks in Postgres](https://incident.io/blog/debugging-deadlocks-in-postgres) Louis Heath 🛠 Code and Tools [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/vwe4ezurybqd9ndhwktw.jpg)](https://www.db-fiddle.com/) [DB Fiddle: An Online SQL Database Playground](https://www.db-fiddle.com/) — It’s been a couple of years since I linked to this useful tool that offers numerous database systems in an online sandbox of sorts (including Postgres versions 9.4 through to 17). While a local database is always better for big experiments, if you want to check syntax changes before versions or test queries against older Postgres versions quickly (or even against MySQL), it’s a quick and easy way to do so. Status200 💡 [RunSQL](https://runsql.com/) is a new, neat Postgres-only alternative we've just discovered too. [ChartDB: Open Source Database Schema Diagram Editor](https://github.com/chartdb/chartdb) — Create a new schema from scratch or quickly import your existing one. Supports Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server, SQLite, and more, and is built in TypeScript. You can deploy it for yourself or [try an online demo here.](https://app.chartdb.io/) _AGPL licensed._ ChartDB Team - [PeerDB 0.24](https://www.peerdb.io/) – Stream data from Postgres to data warehouses, queues and storage engines. - [PG Back Web 0.4](https://github.com/eduardolat/pgbackweb) – PostgreSQL backups with a user-friendly web interface. - 🤖 [pgai 0.8](https://github.com/timescale/pgai) – Timescale's tools to work with RAG and LLMs in Postgres. **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. Fairfield Enterprise Centre, Louth, LN11 0LS, United Kingdom Postgres, PostgreSQL and the Slonik Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of the PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada. [Stop getting this newsletter](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*).