Just Use Postgres!

Postgres can do much more than store rows and answer SQL queries. Just Use Postgres! shows developers how to put its relational foundations, modern SQL features, and extension ecosystem to work across applications ranging from full-text search and JSON to vector search, time-series analysis, geospatial data, and messaging.

Denis Magda builds the book from the ground up: first establishing practical database skills, then showing how far those skills can reach. The result is a tour of Postgres as a flexible application platform, with hands-on examples that connect each capability to real development tasks.

Start with the Postgres fundamentals

The opening chapters cover database structure, querying and modifying data, integrity, transactions, joins, functions, triggers, views, and access control. From there, the book moves into common table expressions, recursive queries, window functions, and the index types developers use to understand and improve query performance.

Work with the data applications actually use

Later chapters explore storing and querying JSON, building full-text search, and choosing indexes for different workloads. These topics show how Postgres can support varied data needs while keeping the database itself at the center of the application design.

Explore extensions and broader workloads

The book introduces the Postgres extension ecosystem and applies it to generative AI, time-series and geospatial data, and message queues. Readers encounter tools including pgvector, TimescaleDB, PostGIS, and pgmq, along with examples of vector similarity search, retrieval-augmented generation, spatial queries, and queue implementation.

Learn through practical examples

Rather than stopping at feature descriptions, the chapters work through datasets and concrete scenarios. That makes the material useful for developers who want to understand not only what Postgres supports, but how its capabilities fit into an application and where extensions can help.

Who will find it useful?

Just Use Postgres! is aimed at application developers, software engineers, and database professionals who already know the basics of SQL. It offers a structured route from core relational work to newer and less conventional Postgres use cases.

If you want a clearer picture of how much a modern Postgres stack can handle—and when a specialized database might still make sense—this book brings the relevant capabilities together in one practical guide.