# How Figma's databases team lived to tell the scale

DevFeed: [How Figma's databases team lived to tell the scale](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/how-figma-s-databases-team-lived-to-tell-the-scale-9768.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.figma.com/blog/how-figmas-databases-team-lived-to-tell-the-scale/>)

Author: Sammy Steele

Published: 2024-03-14T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Figma Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/figma-blog.md>)

Topics: [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>), [Figma](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/figma.md>), [Scalability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/scalability.md>), [Architecture & Design](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/architecture-design.md>), [Amazon Web Services](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/aws.md>), [IO](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/io.md>), [Caching](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/caching.md>), [cpu](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cpu.md>), [monitor](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/monitor.md>)

Tags: [architecture](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/architecture.md>), [aws](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/aws.md>), [caching](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/caching.md>), [cpu](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cpu.md>), [databases](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/databases.md>), [figma](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/figma.md>), [io](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/io.md>), [monitor](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/monitor.md>), [operations](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/operations.md>), [postgres](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/postgres.md>), [scalability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/scalability.md>), [scale](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/scale.md>), [technical](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/technical.md>)

## AI overview

Figma's databases team describes a nine-month effort to horizontally shard its Postgres stack after the database platform grew nearly 100 times since 2020. The article explains how vertical partitioning, caching, read replicas, monitoring, historical analysis, and load testing helped manage growth before table size, vacuum reliability, CPU, and I/O limits required horizontal sharding.

## Source excerpt

Our nine month journey to horizontally shard Figma's Postgres stack, and the key to unlocking (nearly) infinite scalability.