--- title: "Can REPACK CONCURRENTLY replace pg_repack?" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 667 published_at: "2026-09-30" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/667" --- Plus Doom running in SQL, Postgres 19 beta 4, and Andres Freund on where Linux helps and hurts Postgres. #​667 β€” September 30, 2026 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/667) 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/cjv01ik6nyjgnpab0kla.jpg)](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-19-beta-4-released-3386/) [Postgres 19 Beta 4 Released](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-19-beta-4-released-3386/) β€” Confirming [recent developments](https://www.snowflake.com/en/blog/engineering/postgresql-19-release-delay-feature-reverts/), the latest beta is largely about what’s been removed, although numerous fixes have also made it in. A release candidate is due in the next couple of weeks, with the final release _possibly_ in October if things go well. PostgreSQL Global Development Group πŸ’‘ What's gone? SQL/PGQ (property graph) support, online enabling/disabling of checksums, temporal updates/deletes with `FOR PORTION OF`, `MERGE/SPLIT PARTITIONS`, and the `pg_get_role_ddl()`, `pg_get_tablespace_ddl()`, and `pg_get_database_ddl()` functions. [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_limit,w_480,h_480,q_auto/copm/f46e96c8.png)](https://www.tigerdata.com/go/trial?utm_source=content-syndication&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter) [SELECT count(*) Shouldn't Take Eight Seconds](https://www.tigerdata.com/go/trial?utm_source=content-syndication&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=postgres-weekly-newsletter) β€” A count or a rollup over millions of rows crawls, so you add indexes, a read replica, a nightly job. TimescaleDB extends the Postgres you already run so those queries return in milliseconds on live data. No warehouse. [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 [What `REPACK (CONCURRENTLY)` Costs While It Runs](https://boringsql.com/posts/repack-concurrently-costs/) β€” A measurement of Postgres 19's new online table rewrite against `pg_repack` and `pg_squeeze`. `REPACK` was fastest, but has some downsides to consider. Radim Marek πŸ’‘ `REPACK (CONCURRENTLY)` is getting a lot of attention on pgsql-hackers this week too. A [bug that could lose updates](https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CAA-aLv5MF6BLL%2BBWvix2Yw%2BCBardtH43AofPReQunhDZPNBtuA%40mail.gmail.com) was fixed, and Radim's own testing found [a hard limit](https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CAJgoLk%2BdodrwuwCuXERGYwgjQzSwrKd%2BxgitYrL32oWDt39zvA%40mail.gmail.com) on how many concurrent changes a repack can absorb. **IN BRIEF:** - ⚠️ [PgBouncer 1.26](https://www.pgbouncer.org/2026/09/pgbouncer-1-26-0) addresses three CVEs, including two DoS bugs that unauthenticated clients can trigger. It also now tracks `search_path` and `default_transaction_read_only` by default. - Devrim Gunduz [reports](https://people.planetpostgresql.org/devrim/index.php?/archives/130-Using-the-PGDG-RPM-repositories-are-now-way-easier!.html) that Postgres's official [Yum](https://yum.postgresql.org/) and [Zypper](https://zypp.postgresql.org/) repositories are now easier to navigate on the Web. He's also [begun packaging Rust extensions](https://people.planetpostgresql.org/devrim/index.php?/archives/131-Rust-extensions-started-landing-PostgreSQL-RPM-repository.html) there, starting with _PostgreSQL Anonymizer_. - Google has [rounded up its upstream Postgres work](https://opensource.googleblog.com/2026/09/google-cloud-investing-in-the-future-of-postgresql-2026-highlights.html) so far this year. - Amazon Aurora [now supports](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/09/amazon-aurora-postgresql-18-6-17-11-16-15-15-19-14-24/) Postgres 18.6, 17.11, 16.15, 15.19 and 14.24. [Can Your Postgres Survive a Bad Query?](https://clickhouse.com/blog/can-your-postgres-survive-a-bad-query) β€” ClickHouse compares what happens on four Postgres cloud providers (itself included) when queries eat all the RAM, and explains why setting `work_mem` doesn’t prevent it. Kevin Biju (ClickHouse) β–Ά[Andres Freund on Where Linux Helps and Hurts Postgres](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isATpooTax8) β€” A candid talk from this year’s [Kernel Recipes](https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2026/) conference, aimed at kernel developers, covering topics like io_uring, huge pages, futexes, and atomic writes. Andres Freund πŸ“„ [PgQ and PgQue: The Queue Engines You Might Need](https://www.percona.com/blog/pgq-and-pgque-workflow-engines-you-might-need-in-postgresql/) – Spotting bloated task tables and moving them to a purpose-built queue. Jobin Augustine (Percona) πŸ“„ [Fixing One Function's Disk Spills with `ALTER FUNCTION … SET work_mem`](https://cortexridge.com/blog/postgresql-alter-function-set-work-mem/) – An API slowdown was traced to a function causing 150GB of temporary-file writes a day, but a function-local setting tidied up the mess. Dinesh Kumar (CortexRidge) πŸ“„ [When to Choose x86 or ARM for Postgres](https://planetscale.com/blog/when-to-choose-x86-64-vs-aarch64) – Some pros and cons, if you're able to make the choice. Ahmed Darwich (PlanetScale) πŸ“„ [pgBackRest and Failover: Why `archive_mode` Matters](https://pgstef.github.io/2026/09/23/pgbackrest_and_postgresql_failover_why_archive_mode_matters.html) Stefan Fercot πŸ“° Classifieds 🎟️ Join us at [Supabase Select](https://supabase.link/JKX1Ifb) and learn how we’re building the next generation operating system for Postgres with Multigres. [Apply to attend with 25% off: SUPAWEEKLY](https://supabase.link/JKX1Ifb). πŸ› οΈ Tools and Releases [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/wavbvnwvp3kzshmrqsra.jpg)](https://safenotsafe.dev/) [Safe Not Safe: Is My Migration Safe?](https://safenotsafe.dev/) β€” A fun side project from a former lead of Cloudflare's Postgres platform team, who spent years reviewing other teams' migrations. Paste in a SQL migration and it flags common problems, parsing entirely in the browser using Postgres's own SQL parser via WASM. Vignesh Ravichandran [Kafgres 0.2: 700 MB/s of Kafka Throughput on Postgres](https://rynr.dev/blog/700mbskafgres/) β€” We featured this Kafka-compatible broker that runs _inside_ Postgres a few weeks ago. Its author has since taken it from 113 MB/s to 700 MB/s write throughput on a single box. Raynor Elgie - [Pgpool-II 4.7.3, 4.6.8, 4.5.13, 4.4.18, 4.3.21](https://www.pgpool.net/news/2026-09-29/) – A raft of security fixes to fix seven CVEs, one allowing clients using certificate authentication to log in as another user without a password. - [PgDog 0.1.60](https://github.com/pgdogdev/pgdog/releases/tag/v0.1.60) – Rust-powered pooler and sharding proxy. Sharded `SELECT` queries are now handled 40% faster. - [pg_raw_parse](https://github.com/pgdogdev/pg_raw_parse) – PgDog's Rust bindings to the Postgres parser with 20–60x faster parsing than`pg_query.rs`. - [pgBackRest 2.59.2](https://github.com/pgbackrest/pgbackrest/releases/tag/release/2.59.2) – The backup/restore tool adds Postgres 19 beta 4 support. - [PLHaskell 6.0](https://github.com/ed-o-saurus/PLHaskell) – Write Haskell in SQL code. Now supports `Range` types. ✨ And finally… [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/uyyrumbtq6jmmhybqa3p.jpg)](https://cedardb.com/blog/sqldoom/) ['We Ported the Original Doom to SQL'](https://cedardb.com/blog/sqldoom/) β€” Not _quite_ Postgres, but a fun project from the team behind the Postgres-compatible CedarDB. It takes 1993's pioneering FPS and runs the logic and renderer in SQL, returning each frame as a bitmap for Python to show. Some neat architectural details (the renderer uses 89 CTEs!) and SQL queries here. Lukas Vogel (CedarDB) **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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