RLS vs performance

Postgres FM

Nikolay and Michael discuss Row Level Security in Postgres, focussing on the performance side effects and some tips to avoid (or minimize) them.
Here are some links to things they mentioned:

• Row Security Policies (docs) https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/ddl-rowsecurity.html
• 7+ million Postgres tables (recent talk by Kailash Nadh) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhi5Q_wL9i0
• Row Level Security guide (Supabase docs) https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/postgres/row-level-security
• current_setting function https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/functions-admin.html#id-1.5.8.34.3.6.2.2.1.1.1.1
• Our slow count episode https://postgres.fm/episodes/slow-count
• RLS Performance and Best Practices (gist from Gary Austin) https://github.com/orgs/supabase/discussions/14576
• Everything you need to know about Postgres Row Level Security (talk by Paul Copplestone) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZT1Qx2xUCo
• BUFFERS enabled for EXPLAIN ANALYZE by default (commit for Postgres 18) https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit;h=c2a4078ebad71999dd451ae7d4358be3c9290b07
• Add UUID version 7 generation function (commit for Postgres 18) https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commit;h=78c5e141e9c139fc2ff36a220334e4aa25e1b0eb
• Postgres hacking session with Andrey and Kirk (for UUIDv7): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPq_hiOE-N8

~~~

What did you like or not like? What should we discuss next time? Let us know via a YouTube comment, on social media, or by commenting on our Google doc!

~~~

Postgres FM is produced by:

• Michael Christofides, founder of pgMustard
• Nikolay Samokhvalov, founder of Postgres.ai

With special thanks to:

• Jessie Draws for the elephant artwork