# Problems with large tables in Postgres

DevFeed: [Problems with large tables in Postgres](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/problems-with-large-tables-in-postgres-2324.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://planetscale.com/blog/dealing-with-large-tables-in-postgres>)

Author: Simeon Griggs

Published: 2026-08-25T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

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

Topics: [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>), [Database](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/database.md>), [neki](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/neki.md>), [vitess](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/vitess.md>)

Tags: [cpu](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cpu.md>), [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [neki](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/neki.md>), [network](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/network.md>), [outage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/outage.md>), [performance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/performance.md>), [postgres](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/postgres.md>), [vitess](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vitess.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains how large, wide, or oversized Postgres tables can create performance and reliability problems. It describes a cascade-delete incident that caused timeouts, excessive WAL generation, replica lag, primary overload, and an outage. It presents partitioning, vertical scaling, and sharding as possible approaches, emphasizing sharding with Neki as a solution for large Postgres tables.

## Source excerpt

Postgres presents pretty predictable performance problems when dealing with large tables. Sharding solves this.