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Making Postgres 42,000x slower because I am unemployed

byteofdev.com · 3,005 words · saved by 1 readers

Everyone is always wondering how to make Postgres faster, more efficient, etc, but nobody ever thinks about how to make Postgres slower. Now, of course, most of those people are being paid to focus on speed, but I am not (although, if you wanted to change that, let me know). As I was writing a slightly more useful guide, I decided someone needed to try to create a Postgres configuration optimized to process queries as slowly as possible. Why? I am not sure, but this is what came of that thought. I can’t make this too easy. This is a Postgres tuning challenge, not a throttle-your-CPU-to-one-megahertz-and-delete-indexes challenge, so all changes must be on parameters in postgresql.conf. Additionally, the database will still need to have the capability to process at least one transaction within a reasonable amount of time—it would be too simple just to grind Postgres to a halt. This is more difficult than it might seem, because Postgres tries to make it as difficult as possible to make de

Postgres Databases Making Postgres 42,000x slower because I am unemployed By Jacob Jackson July 27, 2025 Everyone is always wondering how to make Postgres faster , more efficient , etc, but nobody ever thinks about how to make Postgres slower. Now, of course, most of those people are being paid to focus on speed, but I am not (although, if you wanted to change that, let me know). As I was writing a slightly more useful guide , I decided someone needed to try to create a Postgres configuration optimized to process queries as slowly as possible. Why? I am not sure, but this is what came of that

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