On a million documents, an expression index took a JSONB field lookup from 75 ms to 0.17 ms. On line items, jsonb_path_ops beat the default GIN operator class on every count: 1.3 ms against 4.1 ms per query, a 10% smaller index and a build 2.5 times faster. Plus what 256 KB documents cost to read and update.
No index
GIN (jsonb_ops)
GIN (jsonb_path_ops)
Expression index
Median query time on 1 million rows, RDS Postgres 17 (log scale). Our measurements, November 2026.
The full report covers index build times and sizes, containment on a whole-document GIN index, summing a JSONB field against a real column (99 ms against 44 ms), and reads and single-key updates on documents from 1 KB to 256 KB, where TOAST starts to show.
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As of November 9, 2026. Provided as is, for general information, and accurate to the best of our knowledge on the date shown. Not legal, compliance, tax, financial or other professional advice. Prices, limits and vendor services change; check current vendor documentation before relying on anything here. Terms of use.