SQLite, the leading open-source embedded database solution, has recently introduced JSONB, a rewrite of its JSON functions that promises to be “several times faster” than the previous implementation. The JSONB rewrite brings significant performance improvements by changing the internal binary representation of JSON into a contiguous byte array that can be read or written as an SQL BLOB. This optimization helps to reduce the overhead of parsing JSON text and representing JSON for storage. Despite the changes, JSONB maintains all the legacy functionality of the previous JSON functions. In fact, all JSON functions can also accept JSONB binary contents, ensuring compatibility with existing code and workflows.

Source: Phoronix.

PostgreSQL 16 has been released has been released with several new features and performance improvements. The update includes enhancements in query parallelism, bulk data loading, and logical replication. One of the notable additions is SIMD support for both x86 and ARM architectures, which improves ASCII and JSON string processing, array operations, and sub-transaction searches. The release also introduces more SQL/JSON syntax, pg_stat_io for key I/O metrics, and various security and access control enhancements. Bulk loading using COPY can see up to a 300% performance improvement in some cases.

Source: Phoronix.