What is difference between BIGSERIAL and SERIAL?

Question

I'm new on PostgreSQL for auto-increment we have to use BigSerial or Serial, so can anyone please explain which one we have to use when creating a table. Which one be the best please explain scenario wise.

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 12 '19 at 12:18

11

From the docs:

serial      4 bytes     autoincrementing integer        1 to 2147483647
bigserial   8 bytes     large autoincrementing integer  1 to 9223372036854775807

answered Aug 12 '19 at 12:18

S-Man

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Thanks for the response. Which one we should use due to performance? – Dilip Kr Singh Aug 12 '19 at 12:25
it depends on how many records you are expecting. If serial is enough, then take serial. – S-Man Aug 12 '19 at 13:08

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '22 at 14:27

There are 3 types of serials in PostgreSQL as shown below:

Name	Storage Size	Description	Range
smallserial	2 bytes	small autoincrementing integer	1 to 32767
serial	4 bytes	autoincrementing integer	1 to 2147483647
bigserial	8 bytes	large autoincrementing integer	1 to 9223372036854775807

What is difference between BIGSERIAL and SERIAL?

2 Answers2