Philippe Noël
@philippemnoel.bsky.social
I am blown away at how much work a small, tight-knit and competent team can accomplish nowadays. The world has truly shifted from "time" to "taste" as the limited currency when striving to do great work
January 23, 2026 at 10:53 PM
I am blown away at how much work a small, tight-knit and competent team can accomplish nowadays. The world has truly shifted from "time" to "taste" as the limited currency when striving to do great work
High-quality search is more than keyword matching. Personalization is what takes search from good to great.
We're investing a lot in building the "unified retrieval stack" for Postgres this year. Expect lots of announcements.
For now, here's how to build personalization today.
We're investing a lot in building the "unified retrieval stack" for Postgres this year. Expect lots of announcements.
For now, here's how to build personalization today.
Ankit (ex-Instacart) shows us how to build personalized search entirely inside PostgreSQL.
A search for “king” could mean LOTR: Return of the King or The King’s Speech.
To fix that:
• Retrieve with BM25
• Rerank with embeddings + cosine similarity
www.paradedb.com/blog/persona...
A search for “king” could mean LOTR: Return of the King or The King’s Speech.
To fix that:
• Retrieve with BM25
• Rerank with embeddings + cosine similarity
www.paradedb.com/blog/persona...
Retrieve and Rerank: Personalized Search Without Leaving Postgres
Build a production-grade personalized search engine entirely within Postgres using BM25 retrieval and vector-based reranking, no external infrastructure required.
www.paradedb.com
January 22, 2026 at 5:57 PM
High-quality search is more than keyword matching. Personalization is what takes search from good to great.
We're investing a lot in building the "unified retrieval stack" for Postgres this year. Expect lots of announcements.
For now, here's how to build personalization today.
We're investing a lot in building the "unified retrieval stack" for Postgres this year. Expect lots of announcements.
For now, here's how to build personalization today.
Looking to hire/contract someone who is experienced making Kubernetes operator for a ~few weeks project. DMs open
January 13, 2026 at 11:11 PM
Looking to hire/contract someone who is experienced making Kubernetes operator for a ~few weeks project. DMs open
1/6. Faceted search (read: aggregates) in Postgres, now at the speed of columnar.
We just released a blog post detailing how we built fast aggregates (COUNT, bucketing, etc.) inside Postgres. This has been one of our most requested features, and we're excited to take you through the journey. 🧵
We just released a blog post detailing how we built fast aggregates (COUNT, bucketing, etc.) inside Postgres. This has been one of our most requested features, and we're excited to take you through the journey. 🧵
Faceting looks simple, it's just counts next to search results right? But making it fast and ergonomic is harder than it seems.
We just shipped native faceting in ParadeDB: it runs inside Postgres, in a index single pass, and is 14× faster over large result sets👇
www.paradedb.com/blog/faceting
We just shipped native faceting in ParadeDB: it runs inside Postgres, in a index single pass, and is 14× faster over large result sets👇
www.paradedb.com/blog/faceting
14x Faster Faceted Search in PostgreSQL with ParadeDB
Introducing faceted search in ParadeDB - bringing the power of search engine faceting to PostgreSQL with single-query aggregations.
www.paradedb.com
December 10, 2025 at 7:46 PM
1/6. Faceted search (read: aggregates) in Postgres, now at the speed of columnar.
We just released a blog post detailing how we built fast aggregates (COUNT, bucketing, etc.) inside Postgres. This has been one of our most requested features, and we're excited to take you through the journey. 🧵
We just released a blog post detailing how we built fast aggregates (COUNT, bucketing, etc.) inside Postgres. This has been one of our most requested features, and we're excited to take you through the journey. 🧵
1/5. We just released V2 of the ParadeDB API. Elastic-quality search and aggregates, SQL-native, and ORM-friendly. Here's how we got there:
We've shown you parts of our V2 SQL API over the last month, but here's a full post looking at everything you can do with it.
Check out the side by side of the CREATE TABLE for old and new APIs, it's so much better ❤️.
www.paradedb.com/blog/v2api
Check out the side by side of the CREATE TABLE for old and new APIs, it's so much better ❤️.
www.paradedb.com/blog/v2api
Deep Dive into ParadeDB's v2 API: The Future of SQL Search
Explore ParadeDB's v2 API that eliminates schema duplication, simplifies tokenization, and provides transparent search operators for intuitive SQL-based full-text search.
www.paradedb.com
December 4, 2025 at 11:02 PM
1/5. We just released V2 of the ParadeDB API. Elastic-quality search and aggregates, SQL-native, and ORM-friendly. Here's how we got there:
1/7. I'm excited to announce ParadeDB v0.20.0. This is our largest release to date, delivering on the 3 most requested features in ParadeDB:
- Faster aggregates
- Faster ingest
- A more intuitive SQL interface
I'm very proud of this release. Let's dive in 🧵
- Faster aggregates
- Faster ingest
- A more intuitive SQL interface
I'm very proud of this release. Let's dive in 🧵
We're excited to announce the release of v0.20.0. This release brings:
- Official support for accelerated facets in ParadeDB
- An order of magnitude improvement to our write throughput
- A brand new SQL interface that's more SQL-native and ORM-friendly
www.paradedb.com/blog/paraded...
- Official support for accelerated facets in ParadeDB
- An order of magnitude improvement to our write throughput
- A brand new SQL interface that's more SQL-native and ORM-friendly
www.paradedb.com/blog/paraded...
Blog
Engineering deep dives, product and company announcements, and guides from the ParadeDB team.
www.paradedb.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:06 PM
1/7. I'm excited to announce ParadeDB v0.20.0. This is our largest release to date, delivering on the 3 most requested features in ParadeDB:
- Faster aggregates
- Faster ingest
- A more intuitive SQL interface
I'm very proud of this release. Let's dive in 🧵
- Faster aggregates
- Faster ingest
- A more intuitive SQL interface
I'm very proud of this release. Let's dive in 🧵
Reposted by Philippe Noël
At long last, @chris.blue and I have submitted the final manuscript of Designing Data-Intensive Applications, second edition, to the publisher. There is always more that could be improved but at some point we just have to call it done. Now it goes into production; probably shipping in ~4 months.
October 20, 2025 at 7:54 PM
At long last, @chris.blue and I have submitted the final manuscript of Designing Data-Intensive Applications, second edition, to the publisher. There is always more that could be improved but at some point we just have to call it done. Now it goes into production; probably shipping in ~4 months.
This morning, I found myself re-reading this article by The Honest Broker on evaluating character. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you do. It's an incredibly distilled set of principles that has benefited me immensely in life. Intemporal advice.
www.honest-broker.com/p/my-8-best-...
www.honest-broker.com/p/my-8-best-...
My 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character
These methods have helped me enormously—and can save you much heartache and anxiety
www.honest-broker.com
November 1, 2025 at 5:24 PM
This morning, I found myself re-reading this article by The Honest Broker on evaluating character. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you do. It's an incredibly distilled set of principles that has benefited me immensely in life. Intemporal advice.
www.honest-broker.com/p/my-8-best-...
www.honest-broker.com/p/my-8-best-...
I saw this on LinkedIn and it was just too accurate to not share here. Postgres powers so much of the world's software yet the core team is a couple dozen people. The ecosystem around it is also surprisingly small for how far reaching it is.
October 31, 2025 at 4:07 PM
I saw this on LinkedIn and it was just too accurate to not share here. Postgres powers so much of the world's software yet the core team is a couple dozen people. The ecosystem around it is also surprisingly small for how far reaching it is.
Couldn't agree more. This is also what we're seeing at ParadeDB
A trend towards pointing LLM/agents to simple search tools (BM25 keyword search or even grep) rather then giving them super complicated 'thick search stacks' (vector or hybrid search). Idea is the LLM can work like a human & try to understand how to use them softwaredoug.com/blog/2025/09...
Agents turn simple keyword search into compelling search experiences
Agents need tools they understand, like simple keyword search. They can reason about these tools, evaluate the results, refine, and iterate to deliver rather...
softwaredoug.com
October 27, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Couldn't agree more. This is also what we're seeing at ParadeDB
Reposted by Philippe Noël
Floor Drees summarized the talk she gave a PGConf EU with CloudNativePG maintainer Gabriele Bartolini last week, titled "They grow up so fast: donating your open source project to a foundation".
In case you're curious about the project's origin story: dev.to/floord/they-... #Postgres #Kubernetes
In case you're curious about the project's origin story: dev.to/floord/they-... #Postgres #Kubernetes
They grow up so fast: donating your open source project to a foundation (or: the CloudNativePG story)
The first commit to the CloudNativePG project was made in February 2020. Just two years later, EDB...
dev.to
October 27, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Floor Drees summarized the talk she gave a PGConf EU with CloudNativePG maintainer Gabriele Bartolini last week, titled "They grow up so fast: donating your open source project to a foundation".
In case you're curious about the project's origin story: dev.to/floord/they-... #Postgres #Kubernetes
In case you're curious about the project's origin story: dev.to/floord/they-... #Postgres #Kubernetes
The conclusions aren't all 100% right here, but I was quite surprised to see us picked up by Tinybird. Must be doing something right
www.tinybird.co/blog/clickho...
www.tinybird.co/blog/clickho...
ClickHouse® vs ParadeDB: Can the parade keep up?
Compare ClickHouse vs ParadeDB for analytics workloads: architecture differences, performance benchmarks, scaling capabilities, and migration guidance.
www.tinybird.co
October 26, 2025 at 2:12 PM
The conclusions aren't all 100% right here, but I was quite surprised to see us picked up by Tinybird. Must be doing something right
www.tinybird.co/blog/clickho...
www.tinybird.co/blog/clickho...
Learning SEO optimization is kinda fun
October 25, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Learning SEO optimization is kinda fun
I'm at PGConf EU in Riga this week. If you're around, come say hi!
October 22, 2025 at 3:34 AM
I'm at PGConf EU in Riga this week. If you're around, come say hi!
I'm interested in hiring an "SEO consultant" to come in, evaluate our SEO posture and make a list of recommendations for what to improve next. Got anyone to recommend?
October 6, 2025 at 5:48 PM
I'm interested in hiring an "SEO consultant" to come in, evaluate our SEO posture and make a list of recommendations for what to improve next. Got anyone to recommend?
Reposted by Philippe Noël
Had a few folks ask why you'd need ACID for search. This @paradedb.bsky.social article from @philippemnoel.bsky.social and company does a decent job making the case.
There are a lot of cases (e.g. fintech) where strong consistency and durability is a big deal for search.
There are a lot of cases (e.g. fintech) where strong consistency and durability is a big deal for search.
ParadeDB
The Transactional Elasticsearch Alternative Built on Postgres
www.paradedb.com
September 30, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Had a few folks ask why you'd need ACID for search. This @paradedb.bsky.social article from @philippemnoel.bsky.social and company does a decent job making the case.
There are a lot of cases (e.g. fintech) where strong consistency and durability is a big deal for search.
There are a lot of cases (e.g. fintech) where strong consistency and durability is a big deal for search.
There's a ParadeDB pg_search package for the .NET! Kudos to Nandor on this one. Source and package manager links:
- www.nuget.org/packages/EFC...
- github.com/nandor23/EFC...
- www.nuget.org/packages/EFC...
- github.com/nandor23/EFC...
EFCore.ParadeDB.PgSearch 0.1.0
EFCore.ParadeDB.PgSearch adds ParadeDB's pg_search extension support to Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL. Exposes ParadeDB search functions through EF.Functions API for LINQ-based full-text searc...
www.nuget.org
September 26, 2025 at 9:12 PM
There's a ParadeDB pg_search package for the .NET! Kudos to Nandor on this one. Source and package manager links:
- www.nuget.org/packages/EFC...
- github.com/nandor23/EFC...
- www.nuget.org/packages/EFC...
- github.com/nandor23/EFC...
An excellent, to-the-point blog post. One architecture difference to note is that MongoDB Search runs outside of the main MongoDB process, while in ParadeDB it runs inside.
We've revamping our tokenizers and will fix this emoji tokenization issue. Thanks Franck!
We've revamping our tokenizers and will fix this emoji tokenization issue. Thanks Franck!
September 22, 2025 at 4:20 PM
An excellent, to-the-point blog post. One architecture difference to note is that MongoDB Search runs outside of the main MongoDB process, while in ParadeDB it runs inside.
We've revamping our tokenizers and will fix this emoji tokenization issue. Thanks Franck!
We've revamping our tokenizers and will fix this emoji tokenization issue. Thanks Franck!
Is it just me or the new macOS Liquid GLass Spotlight is kinda laggy... Ugh (On M3 MacBook Air)
September 22, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Is it just me or the new macOS Liquid GLass Spotlight is kinda laggy... Ugh (On M3 MacBook Air)
A fantastic podcast by our engineer, Ankit Mittal, on how Instacart built search on Postgres, where the future of search infrastructure is going, and why that led him to join us at ParadeDB: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hohp...
Postgres vs. Elasticsearch: Instacart’s Unexpected Winner in High-Stakes Search with Ankit Mittal
YouTube video by The Data Engineering Show - Podcast
www.youtube.com
September 21, 2025 at 4:09 PM
A fantastic podcast by our engineer, Ankit Mittal, on how Instacart built search on Postgres, where the future of search infrastructure is going, and why that led him to join us at ParadeDB: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hohp...
We're writing again! We've got a series of exciting articles coming up, with the first one: Elasticsearch Was Never a Database
Elasticsearch is an amazing product. Really. But it's not a transactional database. Yet because of how painful sync-ing it with Postgres is, many try to. Read on:
Elasticsearch is an amazing product. Really. But it's not a transactional database. Yet because of how painful sync-ing it with Postgres is, many try to. Read on:
People who use Elasticsearch fall into two camps: those who know it shouldn’t be used as a source of truth, and those who haven’t thought it through…
Seriously though, if you use Elastic as a database, we’d love to hear about it.
www.paradedb.com/blog/elastic...
#elasticsearch #database #search
Seriously though, if you use Elastic as a database, we’d love to hear about it.
www.paradedb.com/blog/elastic...
#elasticsearch #database #search
ParadeDB
The Transactional Elasticsearch Alternative
www.paradedb.com
September 18, 2025 at 6:06 PM
We're writing again! We've got a series of exciting articles coming up, with the first one: Elasticsearch Was Never a Database
Elasticsearch is an amazing product. Really. But it's not a transactional database. Yet because of how painful sync-ing it with Postgres is, many try to. Read on:
Elasticsearch is an amazing product. Really. But it's not a transactional database. Yet because of how painful sync-ing it with Postgres is, many try to. Read on:
Interesting article on narrowing the use case to find PMF: medium.com/craft-ventur...
The Sharp Startup: When PayPal Found Product-Market Fit
Reflections on the 20th anniversary of a $100+ billion product
medium.com
August 29, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Interesting article on narrowing the use case to find PMF: medium.com/craft-ventur...
Reposted by Philippe Noël
⚡️ Lightning Talk @ #KubeCon: CloudNativePG: Running Postgres the Kubernetes Way
📅 Mon, Nov 10 | 🕓 4:12–4:17pm EST
👤 Gabriele Bartolini, Maintainer
Discover why CloudNativePG—the only CNCF project dedicated to Postgres—brings production-grade, cloud-native Postgres to Kubernetes. 🚀
sched.co/27d5y
📅 Mon, Nov 10 | 🕓 4:12–4:17pm EST
👤 Gabriele Bartolini, Maintainer
Discover why CloudNativePG—the only CNCF project dedicated to Postgres—brings production-grade, cloud-native Postgres to Kubernetes. 🚀
sched.co/27d5y
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025: Project Lightning Talk: CloudNativePG: R...
View more about this event at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025
sched.co
August 25, 2025 at 9:24 AM
⚡️ Lightning Talk @ #KubeCon: CloudNativePG: Running Postgres the Kubernetes Way
📅 Mon, Nov 10 | 🕓 4:12–4:17pm EST
👤 Gabriele Bartolini, Maintainer
Discover why CloudNativePG—the only CNCF project dedicated to Postgres—brings production-grade, cloud-native Postgres to Kubernetes. 🚀
sched.co/27d5y
📅 Mon, Nov 10 | 🕓 4:12–4:17pm EST
👤 Gabriele Bartolini, Maintainer
Discover why CloudNativePG—the only CNCF project dedicated to Postgres—brings production-grade, cloud-native Postgres to Kubernetes. 🚀
sched.co/27d5y
1/3. ETL: no company's favorite tool, every company's necessary evil.
Synchronizing Postgres to Elasticsearch/OpenSearch is an incredibly common workflow, usually via an ETL tool like Kafka+Debezium.
But what if you had another option?
Synchronizing Postgres to Elasticsearch/OpenSearch is an incredibly common workflow, usually via an ETL tool like Kafka+Debezium.
But what if you had another option?
We’ve worked with 50+ companies syncing Postgres with non-Postgres sinks like Elasticsearch. Our latest post is a deep dive into how Postgres → Postgres differs from Postgres → anything else.
www.paradedb.com/blog/etl_vs_...
www.paradedb.com/blog/etl_vs_...
ParadeDB
Zero-ETL search and analytics for Postgres
www.paradedb.com
August 19, 2025 at 12:08 PM
1/3. ETL: no company's favorite tool, every company's necessary evil.
Synchronizing Postgres to Elasticsearch/OpenSearch is an incredibly common workflow, usually via an ETL tool like Kafka+Debezium.
But what if you had another option?
Synchronizing Postgres to Elasticsearch/OpenSearch is an incredibly common workflow, usually via an ETL tool like Kafka+Debezium.
But what if you had another option?
A great blog post by the folks at Feldera on testing a strongly-consistent, core infrastructure system. We use many of the same ideas at ParadeDB (especially proptesting): www.feldera.com/blog/correct...
Correctness at Feldera
In this blog post, we briefly describe our efforts and development processes that ensure Feldera's engine is correct.
www.feldera.com
August 16, 2025 at 6:59 PM
A great blog post by the folks at Feldera on testing a strongly-consistent, core infrastructure system. We use many of the same ideas at ParadeDB (especially proptesting): www.feldera.com/blog/correct...