The PostgreSQL Tuning Handbook

A practical, open-source handbook for PostgreSQL performance optimization based on 15+ years of production experience leading large engineering teams.

Why This Handbook Exists

As a Tech Lead managing 50+ engineers across software and data teams, I found myself repeatedly teaching the same PostgreSQL optimization patterns. This handbook codifies that knowledge: the real production issues we hit, the solutions that worked, and the gotchas we learned the hard way.

Not trying to sell anything. Just documenting what we teach our teams.

What This Is (and Isn't)

This is a quick-reference companion, not a replacement for comprehensive PostgreSQL books like PostgreSQL: Up and Running, The Art of PostgreSQL, and others that provides deep foundations. This handbook assumes you have that background and need fast, practical answers to common production problems.

If you're new to PostgreSQL, start with those books first. Come back here when you're debugging a slow query at 2am.

Read Online

Website: [Coming soon] GitHub: You're here

Building the Book

This book is written in AsciiDoc and uses Asciidoctor to generate HTML, PDF, and EPUB formats.

Requirements

• Ruby 2.7+
• Bundler

Setup

bundle install

Generate All Formats

bundle exec rake book:build

Output files will be in the output/ directory.

Generate Individual Formats

HTML:

bundle exec rake book:build_html

PDF:

bundle exec rake book:build_pdf

EPUB:

bundle exec rake book:build_epub

Clean Output

bundle exec rake book:clean

Project Structure

.
├── postgresql_tunning.asc      # Main book file
├── book/
│   ├── chapters/               # Chapter content
│   │   └── NN-chapter-name/
│   │       ├── chapter.asc     # Chapter file
│   │       └── sections/       # Section files (for large chapters)
│   ├── images/                 # Book images
│   └── contributors.txt        # Auto-generated contributors list
├── Gemfile                     # Ruby dependencies
└── Rakefile                    # Build tasks

Based on the excellent Pro Git 2 project structure.

Contributing

Corrections, examples, and translations welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Thanks to @mrwbarg for the initial contribution.

License

Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0

Free to use for education and personal projects. Contact for commercial licensing.

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Note: This is a teaching tool, not comprehensive documentation. Covers common production issues our teams encounter, not every PostgreSQL feature.