PostgreSQL Limits
describes various hard limits of
PostgreSQL. However, practical limits, such as
performance limitations or available disk space may apply before absolute
hard limits are reached.
PostgreSQL Limitations
Item
Upper Limit
Comment
database size
unlimited
number of databases
4,294,950,911
relations per database
1,431,650,303
relation size
32 TB
with the default BLCKSZ of 8192 bytes
rows per table
limited by the number of tuples that can fit onto 4,294,967,295 pages
columns per table
1600
further limited by tuple size fitting on a single page; see note
below
columns in a result set
1664
field size
1 GB
identifier length
63 bytes
can be increased by recompiling PostgreSQL
indexes per table
unlimited
constrained by maximum relations per database
columns per index
32
can be increased by recompiling PostgreSQL
partition keys
32
can be increased by recompiling PostgreSQL
The maximum number of columns for a table is further reduced as the tuple
being stored must fit in a single 8192-byte heap page. For example,
excluding the tuple header, a tuple made up of 1600 int columns
would consume 6400 bytes and could be stored in a heap page, but a tuple of
1600 bigint columns would consume 12800 bytes and would
therefore not fit inside a heap page.
Variable-length fields of
types such as text, varchar, and char
can have their values stored out of line in the table's TOAST table when the
values are large enough to require it. Only an 18-byte pointer must remain
inside the tuple in the table's heap. For shorter length variable-length
fields, either a 4-byte or 1-byte field header is used and the value is
stored inside the heap tuple.
Columns that have been dropped from the table also contribute to the maximum
column limit. Moreover, although the dropped column values for newly
created tuples are internally marked as null in the tuple's null bitmap, the
null bitmap also occupies space.