From Postgres 13 to Obsfly

• Pg 13 reaches end-of-life November 2025.
• Pg 16 brings parallel apply on logical replication, faster sort, refined autovacuum, and SQL/JSON improvements.
• Performance gains compound — many real-world workloads see 10-20% latency reduction at no cost.
• Obsfly tracks the upgrade by replaying canonical queries on both versions, side by side.

Fairness signal — useful in renewal conversations.

• Pg 13 is stable and well-understood. If you can wait, plan a thorough upgrade rather than rushing.

1. Step 1

   Capture Pg 13 baseline

   Pin Obsfly's top-100 normalized queries with their p50/p95/p99 distributions.

2. Step 2

   Stand up Pg 16 replica via logical replication

   Or pg_upgrade if you can take downtime. Logical lets you validate without committing.

3. Step 3

   Replay top-100 against Pg 16

   Obsfly's plan-flip detector flags signatures that regressed — these need attention.

4. Step 4

   Cut over and re-baseline

   Stage a 10-15% traffic shift first, watch the band, then full cutover.

• Watch for plan flips — ANALYZE statistics may need re-collection.
• Custom extensions: confirm 16 compatibility for every single one before cutover.

Will Obsfly diff plans between versions?

Yes — by structureHash. A regressed plan shows as a flip immediately after cutover.