Roll over image to zoom in
Just Use Postgres!: A Fast Guide for Developers
Juggling multiple databases slows every project and drains precious developer mental bandwidth. Imagine serving analytics, AI, and search from the same Postgres engine. Modern Postgres already solves these challenges, you only need the roadmap. Skip encyclopedic references, jump straight into working code and clear patterns. Build streaming, geospatial, and time series features faster than ever before. Stop overthinking your stack, just use Postgres and ship with confidence.
- Use-case chapters (eCommerce, streaming, IoT): Translate abstract concepts into relatable, production tested patterns.
- Modern SQL techniques (CTEs, window functions, JSON): Write concise queries, reduce application code complexity.
- Extension deep-dives (PostGIS, pgvector, timescaledb): Add AI, geospatial, and time-series power without extra infrastructure.
- Performance primers (indexes, partitioning, tuning): Keep latency low and throughput high for demanding workloads.
- Ready-to-run code snippets and Docker files: Accelerate learning, eliminate environment setup roadblocks.
Just Use Postgres! by veteran engineer Denis Magda is a concise, example-driven book that shows working developers exactly how to unlock Postgres for modern, multifaceted applications.
Each chapter tackles a real product scenario, from shopping carts to music streams and IoT sensors. Magda guides you through schema choices, index strategies, and powerhouse extensions using clear diagrams and runnable code.
Finish the book ready to build AI-enhanced, searchable, analytics-ready services on a single Postgres instance. Save licensing costs, simplify deployments, and slash maintenance by consolidating diverse workloads into one robust database.
Perfect for developers who know basic SQL and now need production-grade scalability, search, and AI capabilities.
Read more
by Primak Alexander
As a software engineer who’s spent nearly two decades building trading systems and low-latency infrastructure, I’ve seen teams (including my own) reach for specialized databases at the first sign of a non-relational use case. Redis for caching, Elasticsearch for search, MongoDB for documents, Kafka for queues — before long, you’re managing a fragmented data layer with significant operational overhead.
Denis Magda’s “Just Use Postgres!” isn’t just a catchy slogan — it’s a well-reasoned argument backed by practical examples. The book walks through how Postgres can serve as your document store, handle full-text search, manage queues, and more, all while maintaining the ACID guarantees we rely on.
What I appreciate most is the pragmatic tone. This isn’t database dogma — it’s about reducing operational complexity and making informed trade-offs. Denis clearly knows when Postgres is the right tool and when it isn’t.
Whether you’re an architect evaluating your data layer or a developer tired of stitching together multiple systems, this book is worth your time.