--- title: "Millions of queries per second, one Postgres primary, at OpenAI" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 633 published_at: "2026-01-28" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/633" --- Plus a suite of Postgres best practices for coding agents, an introduction to fuzzy and semantic search, and Neon's rebrand. | #​633 — January 28, 2026 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/633) Together with [![Tiger Data logo\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,w_1280,h_282/e_make_transparent/co_white,e_outline:30/px1u7kjyvz7xnbm6ytir.png)](https://www.tigerdata.com/timescaledb?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/bdupmx0qonlmqfbgsmwl.jpg)](https://openai.com/index/scaling-postgresql/) [How OpenAI Scales Postgres to Power 800 Million ChatGPT Users](https://openai.com/index/scaling-postgresql/) — Did you know Postgres sits at the heart of ChatGPT? Operating at an incredibly high scale, OpenAI shares the story of how they have Postgres supporting millions of queries per second using read replicas and **only a single primary** (no sharding!) This article builds upon [a popular talk Bohan gave](https://pigsty.io/blog/db/openai-pg/) at PGConf․dev last year. Bohan Zhang (OpenAI) 💡 If Bohan's name seems familiar, he was one of [OtterTune's](https://ottertune.com/) cofounders (along with Andy Pavlo and Dana Van Aken). OtterTune was an AI-powered database tuning system, so it's no surprise he's crushing it over at OpenAI! 😁 [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_limit,w_480,h_480,q_auto/copm/1f7f5b3f.png)](https://www.tigerdata.com/timescaledb?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter) [The Postgres Extension for Time-Series at Scale](https://www.tigerdata.com/timescaledb?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter) — TimescaleDB extends Postgres with hypertables for automatic partitioning, 95% compression, and continuous aggregates that refresh in real-time. No new database to manage, no new query language to learn. It's just Postgres, faster. [Start building for free](https://www.tigerdata.com/timescaledb?utm_source=cooperpress&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter). Tiger Data sponsor 🔎 [Finding ‘Abbey Road’ When Users Type ‘beatles abbey rd’](https://rendiment.io/postgresql/2026/01/21/pgtrgm-pgvector-music.html) — An introduction to both fuzzy search with `pg_trgm` and semantic search with `pgvector` using a dataset of over 100,000 songs as an example. Daniel Guzman Burgos **IN BRIEF:** - ClickHouse has entered the Postgres hosting game with a new [managed Postgres service natively integrated with ClickHouse.](https://clickhouse.com/blog/postgres-managed-by-clickhouse) - 🇫🇮 The [schedule](https://www.postgresql.eu/events/nordicpgday2026/schedule/) for [Nordic PGDay 2026](https://2026.nordicpgday.org/), taking place March 24 in Helsinki, is now live... 🇫🇷 as is [the schedule for pgDay Paris](https://www.postgresql.eu/events/pgdayparis2026/schedule/) taking place two days later on March 26. - Damien Clochard looks at [which Postgres platforms support PostgreSQL Anonymizer.](https://blog.taadeem.net/english/2026/01/25/postgresql_anonymizer_available_near_you) - Cloud platform [_Neon_ has rebranded with a new design](https://neon.com/) and moved from `.tech` to`.com`. [An Introduction to Buffers in Postgres](https://boringsql.com/posts/introduction-to-buffers/) — Buffers are a fundamental part of what makes Postgres tick internally, but they’re often overlooked in tutorials, beyond tweaking a few config settings for performance. Radim explains what they’re actually doing. Radim Marek [Why Your HA Architecture Is a Lie (And That's Okay)](https://mydbanotebook.org/posts/why-your-ha-architecture-is-a-lie-and-thats-okay/) — _“Stop chasing perfection. Model your architecture for reality”_, says Lætitia in a brief exploration of some common misconceptions around high availability. Lætitia Avrot [`WITHOUT OVERLAPS` Constraints, Now in Postgres 18](https://neon.com/postgresql/postgresql-18/temporal-constraints) — Temporal features arrived in SQL:2011 and, in SQL:2023, were standardized as optional features. Long available in Db2 and MariaDB, `WITHOUT OVERLAPS` landed in Postgres 18, allowing inserts with overlapping time ranges to be rejected. Neon [An Introduction to Postgres Indexes](https://dlt.github.io/blog/posts/introduction-to-postgresql-indexes/) — A foundational overview for developers familiar with indexes at a high level but who want to get a better feel for what’s happening under the hood. Dalto Curvelano 📄 [How to Render a Timestamp with a Timezone Different From Current](https://www.depesz.com/2026/01/27/how-to-render-timestamp-with-a-timezone-that-is-different-from-current/) – Hubert’s done all the experimenting so you don’t have to. Hubert depesz Lubaczewski 📄 [Is the Future of MySQL PostgreSQL (or MariaDB, or TiDB, or ...)?](https://stokerpostgresql.blogspot.com/2026/01/is-future-of-mysql-postgresql-or.html) – Begins with the promising opener of _“I am not intentionally trying to upset anyone with this blog post”_. Dave Stokes 📄 [Using Postgres as a Dead Letter Queue for Event-Driven Systems](https://www.diljitpr.net/blog-post-postgresql-dlq) Diljit PR 📄 [Migrating Sybase/SAP ASE to Postgres](https://hexacluster.ai/blog/migrating-sybase-ase-aka-sap-ase-to-postgresql) Avinash Vallarapu (HexaCluster) 📰 Classifieds 📌 Get the MCP server that’s fully featured, supported by Postgres experts, and compatible with standard Postgres: [github.com/pgEdge/pgedge-postgres-mcp](https://github.com/pgEdge/pgedge-postgres-mcp). --- 🐘 The **CFP** closes on **Feb 1** for [POSETTE: An Event for Postgres](https://posetteconf.com/2026/cfp/). Find all the resources you need on our site. Don’t delay - [get started now](https://posetteconf.com/2026/cfp/). **RELEASES AND CODE:** 🤖 [Postgres Best Practices for Coding Agents](https://supabase.com/blog/postgres-best-practices-for-ai-agents) — A series of Postgres best practices you can easily install to give coding agents like Claude Code or Codex an extra edge, taking into account Postgres specifics like RLS, connection management, and Postgres-specific SQL features. And even if you _don’t_ use AI, you can [read all the guides here in Markdown form.](https://github.com/supabase/agent-skills/tree/main/skills/supabase-postgres-best-practices/references) Pedro Rodrigues (Supabase) 💡 Along similar lines, [Neon has released a suite of agent skills](https://github.com/neondatabase/agent-skills) specifically for working with Neon Serverless Postgres. [RegreSQL 1.5: Regression Testing for SQL Queries](https://boringsql.com/products/regresql/) — The idea is simple: take your queries, run them, capture expected results, then on future runs compare when their cost, I/O or other characteristics change. _“When a query’s result changes unexpectedly, you’ll know immediately.”_ [GitHub repo.](https://github.com/boringsql/regresql) boringSQL ✉️ [pg_utl_smtp 1.0: Oracle UTL_SMTP Compatible Extension for Postgres](https://github.com/HexaCluster/pg_utl_smtp) — [UTL_SMTP](https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/19/arpls/UTL_SMTP.html) is an Oracle Database package for sending email over SMTP direct from database procedures. This extension brings the same API to Postgres. HexaCluster - [Pigsty 4.0](https://github.com/pgsty/pigsty) – The 'batteries-included' Postgres distribution hardens security, adds Docker support, and switches from AGPL-3.0 to Apache-2.0. - [DbGate v7.0](https://www.dbgate.io/) – Cross-platform database tool supporting numerous databases. Write queries, work with schemas, visualize data, etc. - [DBOS Transact 2.10.0](https://github.com/dbos-inc/dbos-transact-py) – Durable execution in Python, backed by Postgres. - [pg-boss 12.7.0](https://github.com/timgit/pg-boss) – Node.js job queue built on top of Postgres. - [PGXN Tools v1.7](https://justatheory.com/2026/01/pgxn-tools-v1.7/) **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|*).