Christophe Pettus: Table Access Methods Wake Up
The PostgreSQL Table Access Method (TAM) API is experiencing renewed interest with recent extensions. Two significant releases, storage_engine 1.0.7 and pg_sorted_heap 0.13.0, introduce new access methods that enhance functionality. The future of TAM and its integration with PostgreSQL's core features will be crucial in shaping the database's direction.
- ▪The TAM API has been part of PostgreSQL since version 12 but saw little activity until recently.
- ▪Recent extensions have introduced new access methods that improve performance and functionality.
- ▪The community is moving towards more pluggability in TAM, while vendors may resist this change to maintain their competitive edge.
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2026-05-20 3 min PostgreSQL Table Access Methods Wake Up The Table Access Method API has been in PostgreSQL since version 12. For most of that time it has been a quiet piece of infrastructure with very little extension activity attached to it — the kind of API that gets a paragraph in the docs, an enthusiastic conference talk, and then five years of silence. That is changing. In the last month, two TAM-shaped extensions shipped substantial releases. storage_engine 1.0.7 adds column-oriented compressed and row-compressed access methods for PG 16–18. pg_sorted_heap 0.13.0 provides a physically sorted heap with zone-map pruning and a planner-integrated vector search hook. Neither is going to displace the default heap tomorrow. Both are doing something interesting enough to look at.
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