Complex collections cause OOM with Postgres

[jeepman32]

Describe the Bug

Fix

PR is available and open here

When

• Using pnpm dev
• With collections with select fields that have large enums
• Using Postgres

Then

The Node instance Payload is runing on will eventually crash due to an OOM.

Where

The schema comparison step inside packages/drizzle/src/utilities/pushDevSchema.ts:26

Why

The method of comparing the old and new schemas uses node:assert.deepStrictEqual which has poor performance, especially with larger objects. Over time, Payload projects using Postgres with large/complex schemas will become slower, eventually running into physical memory limits.

Resources

Previously posted discussion

Memory Usage	Time to completion

Link to the code that reproduces this issue

https://github.com/jeepman32/schema-pulling-oom

Reproduction Steps

These steps aren't required for the reproduction repo, but are useful if trying to create a fresh reproduction.

1. Create a project using the Payload blank template, using Postgres
2. Create many collections, at least 45, that use a select field with at least 1500 options
3. Attempt to run pnpm/npm/yarn run dev
4. Payload will crash due to OOM.

Which area(s) are affected? (Select all that apply)

db-postgres, area: core

Environment Info

Binaries:
  Node: 22.14.0
  npm: 11.3.0
  Yarn: 1.22.22
  pnpm: 10.10.0
Relevant Packages:
  payload: 3.37.0
  next: 15.3.0
  @payloadcms/db-postgres: 3.37.0
  @payloadcms/graphql: 3.37.0
  @payloadcms/next/utilities: 3.37.0
  @payloadcms/richtext-lexical: 3.37.0
  @payloadcms/translations: 3.37.0
  @payloadcms/ui/shared: 3.37.0
  react: 19.1.0
  react-dom: 19.1.0
Operating System:
  Platform: linux
  Arch: x64
  Version: #24-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Mar 14 18:13:56 UTC 2025
  Available memory (MB): 28805
  Available CPU cores: 16

[github-actions]

🚀 This is included in version v3.38.0

[github-actions]

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