Author and translator
The people behind the book
The original book and the Chinese manuscript keep their sources, versions, and license boundaries visible. Select a portrait or name to visit a profile.
Chase Pierce
Founder of Flagon and author of Eight Kilobytes: PostgreSQL from the page up.
冯若航 / Vonng
Founder of Pigsty, PostgreSQL hacker, and open-source contributor maintaining the Chinese manuscript and this site.
A way to read
Turn “why is it slow?” into a question you can test
Start with the physical path through the data, then let measurements guide the decision.
Count pages first
See how rows, pages, indexes, and cache shape the cost of a query.
Read the plan next
Follow estimates, scans, and joins so each choice has a number behind it.
Take it to production
Put connections, backups, replicas, partitions, and extensions back into real constraints.
Contents
Eight parts, forty-four chapters
Follow the path from first principles to scaling out. The book icon in the top navigation opens the full chapter menu at any time.
Front matter
The SQL, PostgreSQL, and lab basics every later chapter assumes.
The machine
Latency, pages, buffers, MVCC, WAL, ACID, vacuum, and why Postgres is not MySQL.
Designing for it
Types, keys, constraints, data models, and the extensions worth knowing.
Finding rows fast
B-trees, other indexes, plans, the planner, queries, search, and database code.
Changing it
Concurrency, online schema changes, and loading large datasets.
Running it
Connections, benchmarks, settings, observability, backups, security, providers, and operations.
Scaling out
Scaling up, replication, partitioning, sharding, and where Postgres loses.
Back matter
Checklists, glossary, and the sources cited throughout the book.
Edition and license
A book you can open, run, and check again
The English manuscript is published online; its Chinese translation is still being reviewed chapter by chapter.
This site publishes Eight Kilobytes: PostgreSQL from the page up, written by Chase Pierce, with examples run against PostgreSQL 18. The Chinese page is a manuscript under review; it does not relabel the English text or change the original chapter order, figures, code, credits, or license.
The original text, figures, and cover are covered by the Flagon book license. The repository’s source records, migration notes, and build configuration explain how this site is assembled; they do not grant republication rights for the book. Please use GitHub for corrections and suggestions.