# What's the maximum number of categories we can have?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/whats-the-maximum-number-of-categories-we-can-have/57022>\
**Category:** Development\
**Tags:** rest-api\
**Created:** [February 7, 2017, 12:08am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/whats-the-maximum-number-of-categories-we-can-have/57022 "2017-02-07T00:08:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![Mittineague](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mittineague/32/114259_2.png) [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2018, 6:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/whats-the-maximum-number-of-categories-we-can-have/57022/7 "2018-01-04T18:12:45Z")

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Determining a “maximum” depends on what you consider to be the limiting factor.

I don’t see a problem with PostgreSQL  
[PostgreSQL: About](https://www.postgresql.org/about/)

> Maximum Table Size 32 TB

Even with optimal indexing, query speeds will at some point take “too long”. What that is will vary from person to person.

Then there’s Ruby, Ember, bandwidth and browser limits. Feel free to research, but I wouldn’t worry about those.

I think that long before any software limits are reached “sane” limits will have already been passed. And what that would be will vary from person to person and how they interact with the information.

tl;dr You will break your users long before you break any code.

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