--- title: "Postgres 19's bumpy road to release" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 666 published_at: "2026-09-23" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/666" --- Plus ten years of logical replication, what backup compression levels cost, and can a 4B model out-plan Postgres? #​666 — September 23, 2026 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/666) 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/go/trial?utm_source=content-syndication&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/orpeyafvjtdmeurbgwki.jpg)](https://www.pgedge.com/blog/looking-forward-to-postgres-19-epilogue) [Looking Forward to Postgres 19: Epilogue](https://www.pgedge.com/blog/looking-forward-to-postgres-19-epilogue) — Postgres 19 is having an eventful beta, with several headline features pulled and no release date. Shaun digs into why via the `pgsql-hackers` mailing list, and suggests AI-assisted review is surfacing bugs faster than committers can handle them. For the _good_ news, Elizabeth Garrett Christensen [lists what's still shipping](https://www.snowflake.com/en/blog/engineering/postgresql-19-release-delay-feature-reverts/), like parallel autovacuum and `ON CONFLICT DO SELECT`. Shaun Thomas (pgEdge) 💡 **Beta 4 is expected tomorrow (September 24).** [This _draft_ release announcement](https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/attachment/204404/19beta4.md) lists the reverts, and a release candidate should follow in early October. [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_limit,w_480,h_480,q_auto/copm/e12423d6.png)](https://www.tigerdata.com/go/trial?utm_source=content-syndication&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter) [Analytics Shouldn't Mean a Second Database](https://www.tigerdata.com/go/trial?utm_source=content-syndication&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter) — A dashboard query slows as data grows, and the fix is usually a warehouse plus a pipeline: sync jobs, lag, stale copies. TimescaleDB extends the Postgres you already run, so analytics stay fast on live data. [Get $1000 credit to start](https://www.tigerdata.com/go/trial?utm_source=content-syndication&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter) Tiger Data (creators of TimescaleDB) sponsor In Brief - 🔎 PlanetScale [has launched TIN](https://planetscale.com/blog/introducing-tin), a fast BM25 full-text search index for Postgres. It's closed source and PlanetScale-only, though they do offer [Lead](https://github.com/planetscale/lead), an open source _"slow but correct substitute"_ for testing TIN queries locally. - 🎧 Over on _Talking Postgres_, Claire Giordano [spoke with Peter Eisentraut](https://talkingpostgres.com/episodes/25-years-of-contributing-to-postgres-with-peter-eisentraut) about his 25 years of contributing to Postgres, which began with `psql` tab completion. - 🇨🇦 [PGConf.dev 2027](https://2027.pgconf.dev/) takes place May 11–14 in Montréal. Registration is open. It's always popular and you can watch [📺 this year's talks here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTw6f6dqzO1t7c9_vFA-uosnR_i5jV7Qb). - [Google has previewed native BM25 search](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/databases/native-bm25-search-in-alloydb-and-cloud-sql/) in AlloyDB and Cloud SQL, built atop the [`pg_textsearch`](https://github.com/timescale/pg_textsearch)extension. ⚙️ Operations & Performance [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/f967fqujsh9acwnl9qvn.jpg)](https://www.percona.com/blog/pgbackrest-compression-how-much-cpu-is-a-smaller-backup-worth/) [pgBackRest Compression: How Much CPU is a Smaller Backup Worth?](https://www.percona.com/blog/pgbackrest-compression-how-much-cpu-is-a-smaller-backup-worth/) — A benchmark of pgBackRest's compression algorithms and levels to find where extra CPU stops paying off in smaller backups. Spoiler: _"Zstandard at a low level is the sweet spot"_. Agustín Gallego (Percona) [Ten Years of Postgres Logical Replication](https://tapoueh.org/blog/2026/09/ten-years-of-postgres-logical-replication/) — A tour of what each Postgres release (from 10 to 19) added to logical replication, shown through building a multi-server write setup using only core features. Dimitri Fontaine [When Deleting Old Rows Costs More Than the Work](https://www.dbos.dev/blog/scaling-deletions-in-postgres) — Some lessons for anyone with big tables where bulk deletes can cost more than the writes. DBOS's engineers share some fixes, like replacing cascading deletes with batched deletes and running manual vacuums. Kraft and Li (DBOS) 📄 [Where Postgres Stores Row Locks](https://boringsql.com/posts/row-locks-on-the-page/) – Every row lock ends up as a write to the heap page, as revealed by `pageinspect`. Radim Marek 🛠️ Tools and Releases [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/w0fiwim4hc6clvxcy8ra.jpg)](https://github.com/dbcli/pgcli/releases/tag/v4.7.0) [pgcli 4.7: The Friendlier `psql` Now Works in Scripts Too](https://github.com/dbcli/pgcli/releases/tag/v4.7.0) — A popular alternative to `psql` for interactive work, with context-aware autocompletion, syntax highlighting, and named queries. v4.7 makes it more useful for scripting, with psql-style `-c`, `-f` and `-t` flags, plus `-y` to skip destructive command prompts. the dbcli project [pgwrh 1.0 Alpha: Read Scaling with Sharded Replicas](https://github.com/mkleczek/pgwrh) — An experimental extension that shards a partitioned table across read replicas, with each holding only part of the data and fetching the rest from peers. Not for production! Michał Kłeczek [pgColumnar 1.0 Alpha 4: A Columnar Table Access Method](https://www.commandprompt.com/blog/pgcolumnar-10-alpha4-released/) — A columnar storage option for Postgres tables. This alpha can lay tables out along a [Hilbert curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_curve), so range filters read up to 2x fewer row groups than with Z-order. Joshua D. Drake (Command Prompt) - [TimescaleDB 2.30](https://github.com/timescale/timescaledb/releases/tag/2.30.0) – Tiger Data's time-series extension makes `ORDER BY ... LIMIT` queries fast even on hypertables with huge numbers of chunks. - [PostgreSQL Anonymizer 3.2](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-anonymizer-32-faster-pseudonymization-3373/) – Dalibo's data masking extension adds faster pseudonymization functions and includes fixes for 3 critical vulnerabilities. - [pgAdmin 4 v9.18](https://www.pgadmin.org/docs/pgadmin4/9.18/release_notes_9_18.html) – The popular Postgres management tool. 📰 Classifieds 🚀 Triple your Postgres productivity. [pgEdge AI DBA Workbench](https://pgedge.com/download/ai-dba-workbench): AI monitoring & diagnostics for ANY Postgres v14+. [Open source](https://pgedge.com/download/ai-dba-workbench). --- 🎟️ Join us at [Supabase Select](https://supabase.link/JKX1Ifb) on October 2. Learn from the industry’s best builders and meet people building developer tools. [Apply to attend with 25% off: SUPAWEEKLY](https://supabase.link/JKX1Ifb). And Finally… [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/yp3rlgkd8o5yxbhj9l2b.jpg)](https://rohanbansal.com/qorl) 🤖 [Teaching a 4B Model to Write 81% Faster Query Plans](https://rohanbansal.com/qorl) — As a sabbatical project at the Recurse Center, a developer used reinforcement learning to train a small model to write `pg_hint_plan` hints for join-heavy benchmark queries (and, on its best runs, it beat Postgres's own plans!). An intriguing read. Rohan Bansal **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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