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The only scalable delete in Postgres is DROP TABLE — PlanetScale

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Large DELETEs add work instead of reclaiming it. Structure your database so deletion becomes DROP TABLE or TRUNCATE.

The only scalable delete in Postgres is DROP TABLE Tom Pang | June 11, 2026 Counterintuitively, large DELETE s add work to the database. From experience we can plainly claim the following: the most scalable Postgres data-deletion strategies revolve around deleting entire tables. Individual row DELETE is fine at a small scale. However, big batch DELETE operations don't immediately free up physical disk space, add write and replication overhead, and are ultimately not good for large scale row cleanup. If your application needs to delete large amounts of data, even very rarely, we recommend movin

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