PostgreSQL Indexing Strategies for Beginners

When to Index?

Indexes are special lookup tables that the database search engine can use to speed up data retrieval. Simply put, an index is a pointer to data in a table.

Common Index Types

• B-Tree: The default and most common. Good for equality and range queries.
• GIN: Generalized Inverted Index. Perfect for full-text search and JSONB data.

However, be careful! Indexes speed up SELECT queries but slow down INSERT and UPDATE operations because the index must also be updated. Balance is key.