fetch-size

TL;DR — By default PostgreSQL ResultSet is not a server cursor but a client buffer. The whole result is fetched before the first next() call.

It is usually a good idea to start with default settings rather than trying to ‘tune’ any possible parameter. Defaults are often suited to the most common cases. However, there’s a big exception to it when using JDBC drivers: the default fetch size is probably not the right setting. Here is an example with the same Java code to show the fetching behavior in Oracle and PostgreSQL.

Java example

Here is my Java code which is exactly the same for Oracle and PostgresSQL