Re-Introducing Hash Indexes in PostgreSQL

If you work with databases you are probably familiar with B-Tree indexes. They are used to enforce unique and primary-key constraints, and are the default index type in most database engines. If you work with text, geography or other complex types in PostgreSQL, you may have dipped your toes into GIN or GIST indexes. If you manage a read intensive database (or just follow this blog), you may also be familiar with BRIN indexes.

There is another type of index you are probably not using, and may have never even heard of. It is wildly unpopular, and until a few PostgreSQL versions ago it was highly discouraged and borderline unusable, but under some circumstances it can out-perform even a B-Tree index.

In this article we re-introduce the Hash index in PostgreSQL!

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Originally published at https://hakibenita.com on January 11, 2021.