Top all-time · #7000
Amit Kapila
Personal blog · amitkapila16.blogspot.comdataprogramming
Amit Kapila writes PostgreSQL and Databases in general, a personal blog at amitkapila16.blogspot.com about data and programming. Since 2015, 11 different Hacker News readers have linked it 21 times, most often “Hash indexes are faster than btree indexes?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-09-24, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Amit Kapila's blog for its post on ZHEAP, a PostgreSQL storage engine intended to give better control over table bloat, tied to the pluggable storage API. The comments only cite it as background.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Hash indexes are faster than btree indexes?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-03-18
- A new storage engine for PostgreSQL to provide better control over bloat2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-03-06
- PostgreSQL Parallelism, What Next?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-02-26
- Amit Kapila: Parallel Apply of Large Transactions2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-09-25
- Improved vacuum in PostgreSQL 132 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-05-12
- Read Scalability in PostgreSQL 9.52 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-01-26
What Hacker News says?
ZHEAP (maybe in the PG12; Check Pluggable Storage API! ) * http://amitkapila16.blogspot.com/2018/03/zheap-storage-engin... * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16526623 * https://github.com/EnterpriseDB/zheap
Comment linking /2018/03/zheap-storage-engine-to-provide-better.html
on “PostgreSQL 11 Released”Submitted A new storage engine for PostgreSQL to provide better control over bloat as a story · 215 points
HN discussionSome articles about new PostgreSQL 13 features: [1] https://info.crunchydata.com/blog/why-postgresql-13-is-a-luc... [2] https://info.crunchydata.com/blog/postgresql-13-hidden-gems [3] https://www.2ndquadrant.com/en/blog/postgresql-13-limit-with... [4] https://www.2ndquadrant.com/en/blog/pg13-slot-size-limit/ [5] https://www.2ndquadrant.com/en/blog/unicode-normalization-in... [6] https://www.2ndquadrant.com/en/blog/b…
Comment linking /2020/05/improved-autovacuum-in-postgresql-13.html
on “PostgreSQL 13”Submitted Hash indexes are faster than btree indexes? as a story · 200 points
HN discussionThere are plans for postgres to move to a more similar strategy to MySQL, at least in some cases: http://amitkapila16.blogspot.com/2018/03/zheap-storage-engin...
Comment linking /2018/03/zheap-storage-engine-to-provide-better.html?m=1
on “Things we learned running Postgres 13”Submitted Improved vacuum in PostgreSQL 13 as a story · 185 points
HN discussion> We can see here that the hash index performs better than the btree index and the performance difference is in the range of 10 to 22%. In some other workloads we have seen a better performance like with hash index on varchar columns and even in the community, it has been reported that there is performance improvement in the range of 40-60% when hash indexes are used for unique index columns. the link is from the po…
Comment linking /2017/03/hash-indexes-are-faster-than-btree.html
on “PostgreSQL's Hash Indexes Are Now Cool”Submitted Parallel Index Scans in PostgreSQL as a story · 111 points
HN discussionYou can read how different databases provide MVCC at my other blog: https://amitkapila16.blogspot.com/2015/03/different-approach...
Comment linking /2015/03/different-approaches-for-mvcc-used-in.html
on “Improved vacuum in PostgreSQL 13”Submitted PostgreSQL Parallelism, What Next? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionnext step --> "ZHEAP" = a storage engine to provide better control over bloat: * http://amitkapila16.blogspot.com/2018/03/zheap-storage-engin... ( 5 March 2018 ) * HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16526623
Comment linking /2018/03/zheap-storage-engine-to-provide-better.html
on “Pluggable Storage Committed in Postgres”Submitted Hash indexes are faster than btree indexes as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Parallel Sequential Scans in PostgreSQL as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted PostgreSQL: Parallelism, What Next? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Read Scalability in PostgreSQL 9.5 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Online Upgrading Logical and Physical Replication Nodes as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Amit Kapila: Parallel Apply of Large Transactions as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Parallel Apply as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Parallelism, What Next? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Troubleshoot waits in PostgreSQL as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Read Scalability in PostgreSQL 9.5 as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
