Subject: pg_stat_statements does not require shared_preload_libraries to be modified

From: PG Doc comments form <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2026 02:37:09 +0000

The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:

Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/pgstatstatements.html
Description:

Hi,

This is inaccurate at
https://www.postgresql.org/account/comments/new/18/pgstatstatements.html/
the module just needs the contrib package;
The docs:
The pg_stat_statements module provides a means for tracking planning and
execution statistics of all SQL statements executed by a server.

The module must be loaded by adding pg_stat_statements to
shared_preload_libraries in postgresql.conf, because it requires additional
shared memory. This means that a server restart is needed to add or remove
the module. In addition, query identifier calculation must be enabled in
order for the module to be active, which is done automatically if
compute_query_id is set to auto or on, or any third-party module that
calculates query identifiers is loaded.

When pg_stat_statements is active, it tracks statistics across all databases
of the server. To access and manipulate these statistics, the module
provides views pg_stat_statements and pg_stat_statements_info, and the
utility functions pg_stat_statements_reset and pg_stat_statements. These are
not available globally but can be enabled for a specific database with
CREATE EXTENSION pg_stat_statements.

---

From: Lukas Fittl <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2026 15:10:34 -0700

Hi Juraj,

> the module just needs the contrib package;

Can you clarify why you think that's the case?

pg_stat_statements certainly does need to be included in
shared_preload_libraries, or it will emit an error noting its not
loaded: ERROR: pg_stat_statements must be loaded via
"shared_preload_libraries"

The only exception to that is if you're in an environment where the
provider has already included it in the default configuration, e.g. on
Amazon RDS - but that is not the case with the regular Postgres
packages to my knowledge.

Thanks,
Lukas

-- 
Lukas Fittl