diff --git a/puppet/zulip/manifests/profile/postgresql.pp b/puppet/zulip/manifests/profile/postgresql.pp
index 9eeef257ad..1227e08577 100644
--- a/puppet/zulip/manifests/profile/postgresql.pp
+++ b/puppet/zulip/manifests/profile/postgresql.pp
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ class zulip::profile::postgresql {
   $work_mem = zulipconf('postgresql', 'work_mem', sprintf('%dMB', $total_postgres_memory_mb / 256))
   $shared_buffers = zulipconf('postgresql', 'shared_buffers', sprintf('%dMB', $total_postgres_memory_mb / 4))
   $effective_cache_size = zulipconf('postgresql', 'effective_cache_size', sprintf('%dMB', $total_postgres_memory_mb * 3 / 4))
-  $maintenance_work_mem = zulipconf('postgresql', 'maintenance_work_mem', sprintf('%dMB', $total_postgres_memory_mb / 16))
+  $maintenance_work_mem = zulipconf('postgresql', 'maintenance_work_mem', sprintf('%dMB', min(2048, $total_postgres_memory_mb / 8)))
   $wal_buffers = zulipconf('postgresql', 'wal_buffers', undef)
   $random_page_cost = zulipconf('postgresql', 'random_page_cost', undef)
   $effective_io_concurrency = zulipconf('postgresql', 'effective_io_concurrency', undef)