There is a PostgreSQL major release every year, and every release has about 200 changes listed in the release notes. A handful of those are typically listed at the top as “major items”, which are highlighted for the benefit of the public.

Sometimes, a feature that was not highlighted as major turns out later to have a significant impact. Consider these features that flew under the radar at the time:

  • PostgreSQL 9.4: replication slots

    This is the one that always comes to my mind when I think back about “hidden gems”. At the time perhaps not fully understood, replication slots are now absolutely essential for any replication setup.

  • PostgreSQL 9.5: pg_rewind

    pg_rewind existed as an external project outside of the PostgreSQL source tree before this. It is also an important component of replication setups nowadays.

  • PostgreSQL 9.6: non-exclusive backups

    Some younger readers might wonder, what? “Exclusive” backups have been removed in PostgreSQL 15, so these “non-exclusive” ones are now the only ones. But at the time, not much attention was paid to them.

  • PostgreSQL 10: CREATE STATISTICS

    A favorite magic wand of many PostgreSQL DBAs – You sprinkle some extended statistics on a problem and the poor plan goes away.

  • PostgreSQL 11: system catalog file format

    An internal feature that no developer wants to miss. Does anyone remember adding catalog entries before this? It was punitive. This feature also inspired further similar automation later on.

  • PostgreSQL 12: ssl_min_protocol_version

    We got bombarded with requests for this, both commercially and in the community, even before this was released, because users needed to disable old TLS versions because of industry and regulatory changes. Before PostgreSQL 12, you needed to apply confusing workarounds; with this it got much easier. The pressure to disable old TLS versions has only increased since then, so deploying anything older than PostgreSQL 12 is annoying now.

  • PostgreSQL 13: logical replication of partitioned tables

    Two popular features introduced separately in PostgreSQL 10 finally managed to work together!

  • PostgreSQL 14: ALTER TABLE … DETACH PARTITION … CONCURRENTLY

    Another partition feature that you don’t want to miss anymore. Especially if you use timestamp-based range partitioning and want to throw away old partitions regularly, being able to do it without a full lock is essential.

No PostgreSQL 15 in this list yet, it’s too early to tell. What hidden gems will we find in the future?