Just Use Postgres!: All the database you need

by Denis Magda

You probably don’t need a collection of specialty databases. Just use Postgres instead!

Written for application developers and database pros, Just Use Postgres! shows you how to get the most out of the powerful Postgres database.

In Just Use Postgres! you’ll learn how

• Use Postgres as an RDBMS for transactional workloads
• Develop generative AI, geospatial, and time-series applications
• Take advantage of modern SQL including window functions and CTEs
• Perform full-text search and process JSON documents
• Use Postgres as a message queue
• Optimize performance with various index types including B-trees, GIN, GiST, HNSW, and more

Over the decades, PostgreSQL, aka Postgres, has grown into the most powerful general-purpose database and has become the de facto standard for developers worldwide. Just Use Postgres! takes a modern look at Postgres, exploring the database’s most up-to-date features for AI, time-series, full-text search, geospatial, and other application workloads.

Foreword by Josh Long. Afterword by Vlad Mihalcea.

About the technology

You know that PostgreSQL is a fast, reliable, SQL compliant RDBMS. You may not know that it’s also great for geospatial systems, time series, full-text search, JSON documents, AI vector embeddings, and many other specialty database functions. For almost any data task you can imagine, you can use Postgres.

About the book

Just Use Postgres! covers recipes for using Postgres in dozens of applications normally reserved for single-purpose databases. Written for busy application developers, each chapter explores a different use case illuminating the breadth and depth of Postgres’s capabilities. Along the way, you’ll also meet an incredible ecosystem of Postgres extensions like pgvector, PostGIS, pgmq, and TimescaleDB. You’ll be amazed at everything you can accomplish with Postgres!

What's inside

• Generative AI, geospatial, and time-series applications
• Modern SQL including window functions and CTEs
• Full-text search and JSON
• B-trees, GIN, GiST, HNSW, and more

About the reader

For application developers, software engineers, and architects who know the basics of SQL.

About the author

Denis Magda is a recognized Postgres expert and software engineer who worked on Java at Sun Microsystems and Oracle before focusing on databases and large-scale distributed systems.

Table of Contents

Part 1
1 Meeting Postgres
2 Standard RDBMS capabilities
3 Modern SQL
4 Indexes
Part 2
5 Postgres and JSON
6 Postgres for full-text search
Part 3
7 Postgres extensions
8 Postgres for generative AI
9 Postgres for time series
10 Postgres for geospatial data
11 Postgres as a message queue
Appendixes
A Five optimization tips
B When not to use Postgres

748 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 16, 2025

Reviews

[Emanuele Piccinelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciated this book for its remarkable clarity of explanation, a rare quality in technical books that cover such a wide range of advanced features. The author presents complex topics, ranging from full‑text search to AI, geospatial, and time‑series extensions, with a modern, direct, and highly understandable writing style.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is that it is perfectly suited both for experienced professionals and for readers who are approaching relational databases for the first time.
Beginners will greatly appreciate the chapters dedicated to modern SQL standards, which provide clear, well‑structured explanations of fundamental concepts such as CTEs, window functions, and query design, helping them build a solid foundation.
Advanced users, on the other hand, will enjoy the extensive coverage of PostgreSQL’s most modern capabilities, including extensions like pgvector, PostGIS, TimescaleDB, and pgmq, as well as its many indexing strategies (B‑tree, GIN, GiST and so on) and practical applications across AI, document storage, and geospatial workloads.
The book is organized around real‑world use cases, making every topic immediately applicable to everyday development scenarios. The author explains when, why, and how to leverage PostgreSQL’s features, avoiding both unnecessary theory and excessive technical complexity. The result is a text that is accessible, practical, and enjoyable to read, despite covering a powerful and ever-evolving ecosystem.

[Daniel Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When architecting software systems, it can be tempting to use different types of databases in well-intentioned attempts to find the best fit, e.g. I am storing JSON, let's add MongoDB, I need a full-text index, let's use Elasticsearch, etc.

This can bite you with added complexity, operating overhead, approval processes, licence costs, and then you may even find you didn't even need it, and the results are disappointing.

The truth is, PostgreSQL is a lot more powerful than many people realise, and by using it fully, you can support use cases that you expect. In this book, Denis Magda is acting as your expert PostgreSQL architect, giving you that nudge to say, you know you could "Just Use Postgres" and giving you, often, a simpler and cheaper option before you go off and make an expensive mistake. Very useful and recommended.

[Sachin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Just Use Postgres!" is a clear and easy-to-read book that highlights the power of PostgreSQL. The author demonstrates that PostgreSQL can perform significantly more than traditional relational workloads and can often replace multiple specialized databases.

The book covers many practical use cases, including modern SQL features, JSON data, full-text search, geospatial queries, time-series data, vector search, and even AI-related workloads. Each topic is explained with simple, step-by-step examples that are easy to follow and apply in real projects.

What stands out most is how the book builds confidence in using PostgreSQL as a single, reliable database for many different needs. If you have basic SQL knowledge and want to get more out of Postgres, this book is a great read.

[Ronald Harmsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book at least twice. It is exceptionally well written and one of the best tech specific books I've read in a long time. All examples are easy to follow and to execute on your own so fiddling around with the technology while reading is easy and for me very valuable.

This book gave me a proper understanding and the confidence to migrate a huge system from SQL Server to Postgres successfully.

If you are well embedded in another RDBMS this book will teach you in a very brief time how to achieve production level knowledge to do the same things in Postgres. Next to that it has thought me some hidden gems that allowed me to improve parts of our system.

If you are planning to migrate to Postgres or just want to tinker with it, this is the book to read.

[Sergio Britos]

Just Use Postgres! by Denis Magda is an excellent, modern guide to getting the most out of PostgreSQL beyond traditional relational workloads. The book convincingly shows how Postgres can serve as a single, powerful database platform for everything from transactional systems to generative AI, time-series, geospatial, full-text search, JSON, and even message queue use cases. It balances clear explanations with practical examples and showcases helpful extensions like pgvector, PostGIS, and TimescaleDB. Ideal for developers and engineers with basic SQL knowledge, this book broadens your understanding of Postgres and inspires confidence in using it for diverse real-world applications.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've often used Postgres over the years but hadn't really delved into its breadth of functionality. As this book's title implies, Postgres's maturity, quality, and range of functionality makes it a "good enough" alternative to a wide variety of more specialized software services. The book does an excellent job of showing how it's useful for a huge variety of tasks: modern SQL (window functions, etc.), JSON, GIS, full-text search, a vector database, LLM-related tasks, etc.

Its step-by-step examples of each area of functionality are particularly good and are very helpful in learning the concepts.

Disclosure: I participated in the manuscript review for this book.

[Vlad Mihalcea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got very excited when Denis told me that he was writing a book about PostgreSQL since we collaborated while he was working for YugabyteDB, and I was very impressed by his knowledge about database systems.

As an application developer, this book is definitely a must-read because the knowledge that you acquire about database systems and SQL is going to help you design better software architectures that are tuned to get the best out of the underlying database system.

In conclusion, if you want to learn more about PostgreSQL, then you should definitely read Just Use PostgreSQL!.

[Mafinar Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents Postgres beyond the RDBMS use case it's famous for. It does a great job outlining the role Postgres can play as a spatial data store, time series database or AI without getting too deep and just enough to get the reader interested.

If you're a Postgres user wanting to try out vector databases, time series or search engines, this book can show you how to experiment with those topics staying within your comfort zone before you try out the more specialized tools, if at all.

I personally loved the chapter on MQ.

[Alessandro Puzielli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book in more occasions: it's a pratical guide to use Postgres as a all-in-one database for a deep explanation of all his features (time series data, interal languase similar to PL/SQL of Oracle) that made his one of the more complete db in production.

Aftet read this book, I don't understand why a lot of small-medium companies prefer to use Oracle

[ALEKSANDR ELISTRATOV · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Just Use Postgres!" is incredibly timely — in the age of database sprawl, Denis Magda shows how Postgres + extensions (pgvector, PostGIS, TimescaleDB) can replace half your stack. Practical, clear, and immediately applicable. A must-read for any backend dev in 2025.
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