Database & Data Guides
// 5 in-depth guides — written for developers who have to pick an approach and live with it
In-depth guides
How to Set Up a Database: The Decisions You Can't Undo Cheaply
Managed Postgres, backend-as-a-service, or self-hosted — what connection pooling, backups, and the serverless connection limit actually cost you before you pick.
6 min readHow to Write Database Migrations That Don't Take the Site Down
Expand-contract, lock-free column adds, and backfilling large tables — why the dangerous migrations are the ones that look trivial.
6 min readHow to Add Caching Without Serving Stale Data Forever
Cache-aside, HTTP caching, and CDN edge caching compared — plus the invalidation strategies that actually work and the stampede that takes you down at the worst moment.
6 min readHow to Add Real-Time Subscriptions Without a Websocket Server You Regret
Server-sent events, hosted realtime, and raw WebSockets compared — including why the reconnect gap loses messages and how presence quietly becomes your hardest problem.
6 min readHow to Implement Full-Text Search Before You Reach for Elasticsearch
Postgres tsvector, hosted search, and Elasticsearch compared — where Postgres genuinely runs out, why typo tolerance changes everything, and the index-sync problem nobody warns you about.
6 min read