Why does PostgresQL query performance drop over time, but restored when rebuilding index

Question

According to this page in the manual, indexes don\'t need to be maintained. However, we are running with a PostgresQL table that has a continuous rate of upd

Answer 1

Auto vacuum should do the trick, provided you configured it for your desired performance.

Notes: VACUUM FULL: this will rebuild table statistics and reclaim loads of disk space. It locks the whole table.

VACUUM: this will rebuild table statistics and reclaim some disk space. It can be run in parallel with production system, but generates lots of IO which can impact performance.

ANALYZE: this will rebuild query planner statistics. This is triggered by VACUUM, but can be run on its own.

More detailed notes found here