Re: VACUUM/ANALYZE Strategy for Low-Activity PostgreSQL 15 Instance

On 13/01/2026 08:19, Gabriel Guillem Barceló Soteras wrote:
> Hi,
> We have a healthy PostgreSQL 15 instance (installed from the official
> Postgres repository) running on Red Hat 9. It serves several databases
> for internal SMB applications. The environment is stable—apps perform
> well, disk usage is fine, and the system is not under heavy load.
>
> After integrating PostgreSQL into our monitoring system, I noticed
> warnings related to VACUUM and ANALYZE. Some tables have never
> undergone these maintenance operations, or the last run was 30–200
> days ago. These databases have very few deletions, and many tables
> show no growth at all—typical for internal SMB apps.
> I know this topic comes up often, but should I schedule a monthly
> VACUUM + ANALYZE via a cron or systemd timer, while still keeping
> autovacuum enabled?
>
> We’re also monitoring table bloat, which is currently under 1%,
> suggesting that manual intervention may not be necessary and that
> autovacuum is doing its job when needed.
>
You would normally not need to do anything manually - autovacuum is
sufficient. The main times anything else may be needed is if you do a
mass delete or update, in which case the autovacuum may not be updating
"quick enough" or you may want to do a "vacuum full" to recover disk space.

What is your monitoring system looking at that is making it generate
those warnings? You need to see what criteria it is using, and then
decide whether those matter to you, or if they're false warnings that
need adjusting somehow.

Paul