PostgreSQL JSONB: A Complete Guide to Storing and Querying JSON Data

Every application reaches a point where the relational model gets awkward. User preferences. API responses. Feature flags. Event payloads. You could create a new column for each field, run a migration every time the schema changes, and normalize everything into lookup tables. Or you could store the data as JSON.

PostgreSQL gives you both options, and unlike databases that bolt on JSON support as an afterthought, PostgreSQL treats JSONB as a first class data type with real indexing, operators, and query planning. You get the flexibility of a document store with the guarantees of a relational database: transactions, constraints, joins, and a query planner that actually knows what it's doing.

This guide covers everything you need to work with JSONB in production: when to use it, how to query it, how to index it, and where teams get tripped up.

Originally published at rivestack.io