diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index 8873990cb3e..77a4a938e48 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ x-sentry-defaults: &sentry_defaults
       <<: *depends_on-healthy
     kafka:
       <<: *depends_on-healthy
-    postgres:
+    pgbouncer:
       <<: *depends_on-healthy
     memcached:
       <<: *depends_on-default
@@ -144,6 +144,24 @@ services:
       POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD: "trust"
     volumes:
       - "sentry-postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data"
+  pgbouncer:
+    image: "edoburu/pgbouncer:v1.24.1-p1"
+    healthcheck:
+      <<: *healthcheck_defaults
+      # Using default user "postgres" from sentry/sentry.conf.example.py or value of POSTGRES_USER if provided
+      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "psql -U postgres -p 5432 -h 127.0.0.1 -tA -c \"select 1;\" -d postgres >/dev/null"]
+    depends_on:
+      postgres:
+        <<: *depends_on-healthy
+    environment:
+      DB_USER: ${POSTGRES_USER:-postgres}
+      DB_HOST: postgres
+      DB_NAME: postgres
+      AUTH_TYPE: trust
+      POOL_MODE: transaction
+      ADMIN_USERS: postgres,sentry
+      MAX_CLIENT_CONN: 10000
+
   kafka:
     <<: *restart_policy
     image: "confluentinc/cp-kafka:7.6.1"
diff --git a/install/set-up-and-migrate-database.sh b/install/set-up-and-migrate-database.sh
index 5ddf324c0b8..debebd2531d 100644
--- a/install/set-up-and-migrate-database.sh
+++ b/install/set-up-and-migrate-database.sh
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ echo "${_group}Setting up / migrating database ..."
 if [[ -z "${SKIP_SENTRY_MIGRATIONS:-}" ]]; then
   # Fixes https://github.com/getsentry/self-hosted/issues/2758, where a migration fails due to indexing issue
   start_service_and_wait_ready postgres
+  start_service_and_wait_ready pgbouncer
 
   os=$($dc exec postgres cat /etc/os-release | grep 'ID=debian')
   if [[ -z $os ]]; then
diff --git a/sentry-admin.sh b/sentry-admin.sh
index aeea2b36845..ef5608488f9 100755
--- a/sentry-admin.sh
+++ b/sentry-admin.sh
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ on the host filesystem. Commands that write files should write them to the '/sen
 # Actual invocation that runs the command in the container.
 invocation() {
   start_service_and_wait_ready postgres
+  start_service_and_wait_ready pgbouncer
   start_service_and_wait_ready redis --wait
   $dcr --no-deps -v "$VOLUME_MAPPING" -T -e SENTRY_LOG_LEVEL=CRITICAL web "$@" 2>&1
 }
diff --git a/sentry/sentry.conf.example.py b/sentry/sentry.conf.example.py
index 826f43ae2d6..944dc6399b3 100644
--- a/sentry/sentry.conf.example.py
+++ b/sentry/sentry.conf.example.py
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ def get_internal_network():
         "NAME": "postgres",
         "USER": "postgres",
         "PASSWORD": "",
-        "HOST": "postgres",
+        "HOST": "pgbouncer",
         "PORT": "",
     }
 }