Database Sharding Strategies

The cluster focuses on debates around database sharding for multi-tenant SaaS applications, comparing single large databases, per-tenant schemas or instances, and hybrid approaches for scaling and isolation.

📉 Falling 0.4x Databases
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RAM B2B JOIN DB e.g CRDB HASH hash.html AWS PG db database tenant server separate mysql single databases dbs data

Sample Comments

SoftTalker • Dec 21, 2025 • View on HN

Give each business or customer its own schema and you almost never need sharding.

kgeist • Sep 16, 2024 • View on HN

You mean it's easier to shard databases per tenant when it's a monolith?

killingtime74 • Jan 23, 2026 • View on HN

Why a single postgres? Why not shard by users?

endisneigh • Dec 11, 2022 • View on HN

Using a sharded database is not just for scale.

encoderer • Oct 1, 2025 • View on HN

99% of apps never need to shard data. Probably closer to 99.9% if they are single tenant.

CuriouslyC • Jan 24, 2026 • View on HN

Not if you're sharding correctly.

markjkowalski • Oct 8, 2017 • View on HN

Isn't that what sharded databases do?

pietherr • Aug 31, 2020 • View on HN

You shard for load distribution. If data isolation is #1 priority, use separate tables, schemas, database instances.

Axsuul • Jun 25, 2020 • View on HN

Very likely a monolith database (the sharding gives it away) that uses a multi-tenant architecture (`WHERE account_id = ?`)

js4ever • Dec 29, 2021 • View on HN

It's not really an issue if you have 1 db per customer