---
title: "If I have read-only tables in Postgres, should I index them heavily?"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/if-i-have-read-only-tables-in-postgres-should-i-index-them-heavily--1wdageg6u
source_url: https://neon.com/blog/if-i-have-read-only-tables-in-postgres-should-i-index-them-heavily
type: article
source: "Neon"
published: 2026-07-09T06:57:34.131Z
updated: 2026-07-09T06:59:42.893Z
tags: ["database", "postgresql"]
reading_time: 10
upvotes: 0
comments: 0
language: en
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# If I have read-only tables in Postgres, should I index them heavily?

**[Neon](https://daily.dev/sources/neontech)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

Explores whether read-only or read-heavy Postgres tables should be heavily indexed. Covers four key dimensions: table size (small tables like 8k rows often see no benefit from indexes due to efficient full scans), query complexity (simple queries can actually be slower with indexes, while complex multi-condition queries benefit greatly), data format (low-cardinality types like booleans are poor candidates for B-tree indexes), and resource constraints (disk space, memory, CPU overhead). Includes benchmark comparisons showing index performance at 10k vs 10M rows with simple and complex queries.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://neon.com/blog/if-i-have-read-only-tables-in-postgres-should-i-index-them-heavily>

## Similar posts on daily.dev

- [Introduction to PostgreSQL Indexes ::](https://daily.dev/posts/introduction-to-postgresql-indexes--peasixbnz) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments
- [What is index overhead on writes? – select \* from depesz;](https://daily.dev/posts/what-is-index-overhead-on-writes-select-from-depesz--nvwibwopn) · depesz · 0 upvotes · 0 comments
- [Introduction to Postgres Indexes – Frontend Masters Blog](https://daily.dev/posts/introduction-to-postgres-indexes-frontend-masters-blog-ua497z0ze) · Frontend Masters · 16 upvotes · 0 comments

---

Tags: [#database](https://daily.dev/tags/database), [#postgresql](https://daily.dev/tags/postgresql)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/if-i-have-read-only-tables-in-postgres-should-i-index-them-heavily--1wdageg6u)