+1. If you really understand your queries (which, if your queries are complicated enough that you already don't use an ORM, you should), then my favorite set o

+1. If you really understand your queries (which, if your queries are complicated enough that you already don't use an ORM, you should), then my favorite set of "tricks" are CTEs to collect info and convert/translate as necessary, then unions to merge/filter said data from the CTEs. Add aggregate/window functions to this data, and you are good to go. You can really do some complicated pipelining of data cleaning and filtering this way, much faster than resorting to a whole bunch of complicated inline SQL work in the clauses. [edit] I should add, learn how to read an explain plan, this is vital for understanding and improving your queries.