A trigram index took an address search on 5 million rows from 2.7 s to 95 ms. On a million documents of common words, the same kind of index made a phrase search slower than no index at all (1.8 s against 1.2 s), while full-text search answered in 263 ms. When each one works, with build times and sizes.
ILIKE, no index
Trigram index
Full-text (tsvector + GIN)
Median search time (log scale). Left: a distinctive substring in 5 million addresses. Right: three common words in 1 million documents. Our measurements, November 2026.
Same index type, opposite results. The full report explains why, with index build times, sizes and the cost of adding a generated tsvector column to a million rows.
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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.