How Postgres DELETE can actually scale

Re:How Postgres DELETE can actually scale by mcherm on Monday October 19, 2026 @05:40AM (#50150314)

Yes, but "DELETE" is the basic, built-in tool for deleting some rows from a database. Maintaining partitions, and migrating long-lived data from old partitions is a workaround.

There is nothing wrong with using the partition solution -- it might be a good solution to your problem. But it certainly isn't a case of "rejecting technological simplicity" if someone chooses to use DELETE instead.

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Re:How Postgres DELETE can actually scale by sgarland on Monday October 19, 2026 @09:07AM (#50151983)

IME as a DBRE, it usually is rejecting simplicity. Most devs know precious little about RDBMS, and so reach for what they do know. When an experienced DBA / DBRE shows them the idiomatic way to do what they’re attempting, they often reject it and claim “flexibility,” or “keeping logic out of the database.” It’s just not wanting to do things they’re unfamiliar with, but for some reason it’s accepted for RDBMS, because it lives in the liminal space of infra and code.

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