Fast with 50 rows, slow with 20 million
Your orders page was instant in testing. Two years and 20 million orders later, it takes eight seconds to load.
This answers: Why did my database get slow as it grew? No coding needed. 2 quick decisions.
- Where your data lives
- Debugging without panic
Checking your access…
Why did my database get slow as it grew?
Usually because queries filter or sort on columns without an index, so the database reads every row. With little data this is instant; with hundreds of thousands of rows it is slow. Add on the columns you filter and sort by, especially foreign keys, and test with realistic data.
Breaks at Database: No index: reads every row
How it works
20,000,000rows read
Each square stands for 100,000 rows.
Why AI tools write this bug
AI-generated schemas create tables and foreign keys but rarely the matching , and test data is too small to show the problem.
How to fix it
- Find slow queries in your database dashboard or advisor.
3 more steps, and a prompt that checks your own app for this bug. Part of Pro.
UnlockCommon questions
- Should I index every column?
- No. Indexes slow down writes and use storage. Index for the queries you run.