ParadeDB is built from two Postgres extensions

This guide explains how to install these extensions inside an existing, self-hosted Postgres database.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have superuser access to the Postgres database.

Next, install libicu.

Install the ParadeDB Postgres Extensions

ParadeDB provides prebuilt binaries for our extensions on

  • Debian 12
  • Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and 9

Postgres 14, 15, 16, and 17 on both amd64 (x86_64) and arm64 are available. If you are using a different version of Postgres or a different operating system, you will need to build the extensions from source.

The prebuilt releases can be found in GitHub Releases.

You can replace 0.13.1 with the pg_search version you wish to install and 17 with the version of Postgres you are using.

pg_analytics

The prebuilt releases can be found in GitHub Releases.

You can replace 0.2.3 with the pg_analytics version you wish to install and 17 with the version of Postgres you are using.

Update postgresql.conf

Next, add the extension(s) to shared_preload_libraries in postgresql.conf.

shared_preload_libraries = 'pg_search,pg_analytics'

Reload the Postgres server for these changes to take effect.

Load the Extensions

Finally, connect to your Postgres database via your client of choice (e.g. psql) and run the following command:

CREATE EXTENSION pg_search;
CREATE EXTENSION pg_analytics;

That’s it! To get started, follow the quickstart guide.

pg_search can be combined with pgvector for hybrid search. You can find the instructions for installing pgvector here.