node-postgres parameterized query runs 10 times slower

I was using node-posgres parameterized queries.

However, it was inserting data very slowly: 100 rows was taking 5 seconds!

Switching to pg-format and producing plain old SQL strings - even when executing them one at a time - reduced the time to insert 100 rows of the same data to 125 ms.

(If I then concatenate all 100 insert SQL strings and send it as a single query it goes down to just 25ms)

I found this question (from Dec 13, 2010 mind you) that suggests a C# PostgreSQL client had serious problems with it.

Is node-postgres the same?

That is, should we not be using parameterized queries with node-postgres, or am I just doing something stupid?

• pg v8.11.1
• node v18.14

Thanks!

Here's the basic slow code if you're interested:

const insertSQL = `
    INSERT INTO "mytable"
    (  "column1", "column2", "column3",
        "column4", "column5", "column6",
        "column7", "column8", "column9"
    ) VALUES ( $1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9 );
`;

await pgClient.query("BEGIN");
for( let i=0; i<100; i+=1 ) {
    const test_data = test_datum[i];
    const values = [
            test_data.column1, test_data.column2, test_data.column3,
            test_data.column4, test_data.column5, test_data.column6,
            test_data.column7, test_data.column8, test_data.column9
        ];
    await pgClient.query(insertSQL, values);
}
await pgClient.query("COMMIT");

And the pg-format code that inserts 100 records in 125ms:

await pgClient.query("BEGIN");
for( let i=0; i<100; i+=1 ) {
    const test_data = test_datum[i];
    const insertSql = pgformat(`
            INSERT INTO "mytable"
            (  "column1", "column2", "column3",
                "column4", "column5", "column6",
                "column7", "column8", "column9"
            ) VALUES (%L,  %L,  %L, %L,  %L,  %L, %L,  %L,  %L );
        `, test_data.column1, test_data.column2, test_data.column3,
            test_data.column4, test_data.column5, test_data.column6,
            test_data.column7, test_data.column8, test_data.column9 );
    await pgClient.query(insertSQL);
}
await pgClient.query("COMMIT");